


The Second Five Years

by hafital



Series: The Lifetimes of Steve Rogers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafital/pseuds/hafital
Summary: Steve finds a way for Bucky and him to take the time they need before he leaves on his mission to return the Stones. Takes place just after the Battle of Earth.~*~But, here they were. Here, at last, despite whatever tomorrow would bring. Steve would take what he could, even if he had to carve it out of time itself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Series: The Lifetimes of Steve Rogers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686673
Comments: 20
Kudos: 87





	The Second Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of a five part series that explores Steve Rogers' travels through the multiverse. The entire series is already written. Part Two: The Infinity Stones, will be posted next week. 
> 
> Except for the first part and the epilogue, most of this series takes place entirely within the five seconds after Steve disappears from the platform. It is also canon compliant, but since 95% of it takes place in alternate timelines, it is also canon divergent. :D 
> 
> This story uses the Alternate Timeline theory of Avengers: Endgame
> 
> Thank you to killabeez and slb44 for the beta!

**1970, New Jersey**

The idea started in 1970, even before he knew it could happen. He took four particle vials, two more than needed, just in case. At least, that’s what he told himself.

**The Present**

When the sky cleared and the breeze carried away the dust of their enemies, it surprised Steve to realize it was only early evening, with the sun just beginning to set. Thanos’s ship had blocked the sky, had brought dark clouds and given the impression of dusk and shadows. But the sky turned blue again, and they were left with a colorful sunset and rays of golden light splitting through the prism of dust and lingering clouds, spreading across the scene of destruction. It shouldn’t have been beautiful.

Already, emergency response vehicles were driving in, setting up stations. Steve and Rhodes began to lift Tony’s body, to get him somewhere safe and protected, away from the rubble and dirt, but Peter Parker stepped in. He wanted to carry Tony, so Steve let Tony go. Pepper walked beside them. Steve stood with Thor and Bruce and Clint, the four of them watching their teammate carried away. 

The tears in Thor’s eyes spoke of everything Steve had also lost, and now this, too. Whatever it took, Steve had said, but damn it….both Natasha and Tony? It hurt, a dragging weight threatening to unbalance the fact that they won. It was a pain he wouldn’t shake off any time soon. 

Thor searched Steve’s face. They understood each other, what the loss of Tony and Natasha meant, and they instinctively turned toward Bruce and Clint—a too-small circle. They had been something special, the six original Avengers, and now that had ended. 

Clint was the first to break off. He nodded at Steve and Thor, who nodded back, but he already had his phone up to his ear, walking away to sit on a chunk of broken rock and upturned tree roots. “Laura?” he asked, speaking into his phone with a roughened voice.

Bruce frowned as he watched Clint, then bowed his head as he, too, walked away. Despite his injured arm, he went over to where Wanda and Danvers and Dr. Strange were shifting chunks of cement, building a temporary dam to hold back the river. 

Thor let out a long sigh. “And so,” he said, but he didn’t finish his sentence. 

Steve knew what he meant anyway. He swallowed back the ache in his throat. “Yeah.” They gripped each other’s forearms. Thor was smiling a little through his tears. It wasn’t a smile of joy, but neither was it entirely of sorrow. 

Someone behind Thor called to him. “Your majesty.” Steve looked up to see an Asgardian soldier with two other soldiers beside him. 

With his back to his kinsmen, Thor winced with a pained expression, and he didn’t immediately turn to face his people.

“Hey,” said Steve, softly so only Thor could hear. “You’re going to be okay.” 

Thor searched Steve’s face. They both were caked in blood and dirt, but he gave Steve a more genuine smile as he took a breath, nodded once, then held this hand out to the side. Mjolnir flew the short distance from where it had drop earlier during the fight. Thor pressed the flat of the hammer against Steve’s chest and made him take hold of it. A zap of electricity passed between them and Thor stood to his full height and turned to his fellow Asgardians. 

“My friends,” said Thor, beaming at the soldiers and the few other Asgardians that had joined them, taking each into a hug and murmuring their names one after the other. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you returned.” 

Thor walked away, heading off with the Asgardians and back to where Valkyrie stood with her horse, leaving Steve alone again. 

But Steve wasn’t alone. Waiting patiently to the side stood Sam and Bucky: the two of them, both so alive, together they took his breath away. Gratitude welled up so fast and sharp that his eyes stung. 

As long as he lived, he would never forget the moment Sam flew across the battle-darkened sky. But the fight against Thanos had taken all of his attention, and he had barely had a moment to register the miracle of their return since then. 

“Bucky,” he said, his throat full of ash. Bucky looked exactly as he had in Wakanda, just as serious and solemn as Steve remembered. The aches and pains of the fight settled over Steve, and he took one limping step toward him.

“Hi, Steve,” said Bucky, with a frown as Steve pulled him in for a hug. 

Steve turned to Sam, and felt sideswiped by blinding relief. “Oh God, Sam.”

Sam’s face creased with worry, and he moved right in to take hold of Steve. “I think you better sit down before you fall down.”

He shook his head. “I’m okay,” he said, cupping Sam’s beloved face before turning back to pull Bucky closer. “I’m okay now.”

Everything else became a blur. Nick Fury and Maria Hill appeared and took control of the situation. Decisions were made, the clean up started, and organization settled over the scene. Dr. Strange and the other wizards opened portals and returned those who’d come from distant parts of the universe, though a few remained—to help, to honor the dead. 

It would take several days to get everything sorted. A new quantum tunnel had to be built, and the Stones returned. And…Steve’s thoughts skidded to a halt. He gripped Mjolnir’s handle.

Fury strode over to him in the midst of the activity. Both Sam and Bucky stepped closer, and everyone eyed each other warily, but Fury only held out his hand for Steve—who took it warmly in a firm, tight grasp—and didn’t let go quickly. 

“It’s good to see you, sir,” said Steve.

“Good to be seen,” answered Fury, with his customary dryness. “We’ll need to debrief you. And the others. But it doesn’t have to be right this second. You look like you could use a rest. We’ve got this handled. If I can still give you orders: go home.”

Steve nodded. “About Natasha,” he started. 

Fury rarely showed emotion, outside of humor and the occasional flash of cold anger, but he dropped his gaze, and furrowed his brow. “It can wait, Captain.” He turned toward Bucky, standing to Steve’s right, and then to Sam on his left. With a smirk, he said, “Can I trust you gentlemen to get this man away from here? Oh eight hundred. Tomorrow, Captain. See you then.”

They returned to his apartment in Brooklyn. He stood at the threshold of his living room, Sam and Bucky on either side of him. It was surreal to return. Outside, the streets of Brooklyn were full of activity. Confusion reigned as half of humanity returned unannounced. 

“Um,” he said, and quietly started laughing, though tears made him swipe at his eyes. He sensed both Sam and Bucky looking at each other, communicating silently behind his back. It was just that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had an apartment full of guests, with all the kinds of concerns that went along with that—did he have clean linens? Had the milk gone bad? When had he cleaned the bathrooms last? He had hardly been back since Scott Lang appeared at the compound’s doorstep and started this whole thing.

Then he remembered—Natasha was the last person to visit him here, on the rare occasion when he’d succeeded in convincing her to leave the compound.

“There’s a…” He cleared his throat. “There’s a spare bedroom. And the couch pulls out. Sam, you still have a bag of clothes here, somewhere.”

“Steve,” said Sam, and Steve wiped at his eyes again. “Man, go shower, and then get some sleep, if you can. We can take care of ourselves.”

Steve nodded, grateful. He headed for his room, but stopped before he entered. “Sam,” he said. “Of your family, only your sister survived the Snap. I kept an eye on her. But you should give her a call. Number’s on the fridge.”

Sam froze, and Steve saw a flood of realization overtake him. He glanced at Bucky, and Bucky gave him a nod, letting him know he had Sam’s back. Steve went into his room, shutting the door, listening to their voices before he went into his bathroom, and let a hot shower drown out all the noise in his head. When he slept, he dreamed of the 1970s, of the shadows in Peggy’s office, and the smell of her perfume that lingered in the air.

*

He woke to several cars honking outside his window. There was traffic again. The scent of coffee wafted over him. From the living room came the sound of the radio and the television going at the same time. And beneath that, he heard Sam and Bucky bickering. It was mostly Sam he heard, but Bucky snuck in a barb or two. It made him smile, his heart aching with simple joy. The buzz of life hummed in the air.

He dressed, and quietly opened his bedroom door, padding over to the kitchen to lean against the doorjamb as he watched his two best friends maneuver around the small space. On the television, the news showed a split screen between two news anchors talking over footage of the throngs of people gathering in Central Park, cutting to an aerial shot of the battle site. The radio newscaster listed different numbers to call for assistance, places to go to reunite with family and friends. 

Bucky was searching through Steve’s cupboards, opening all the doors and not finding what he wanted. 

“What’re you looking for,” asked Sam in a helpful tone but hiding the sugar bowl behind his back. 

“Does Steve have any…” Bucky paused, his back stiffening as he put two and two together, turning with a grimace to face Sam. “Hand it over.”

“What?” asked Sam, innocently sipping his coffee. 

Bucky just stared at him with his hand out until Sam cracked a grin and grudgingly gave him the sugar bowl. But when Bucky turned back to his waiting mug of coffee, the mug was missing. At first perplexed, he looked around for it, then stopped and turned back to Sam. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

“As long as I want,” said Sam, with a wide grin as he gave Bucky back his mug of coffee. 

Bucky shook his head, but Steve saw a hint of a smile. 

Watching this scene was better than any medicine Steve had ever taken in his entire life. He cleared his throat and made his presence known. They both turned at the same time. 

“Oh, look. Sleeping Beauty decided to join us,” said Sam. 

Steve grinned, then quirked his eyebrows in a question. “Which one of you is Prince Charming?”

“Me,” said Sam, eyeing Bucky sternly. “Definitely me.”

Steve laughed—Sam could always make him smile. Always. Then he looked down at his feet when he felt the sting of tears. The lighthearted banter stuttered to a halt, but he stepped closer to Sam and Bucky. “I think it’s the other way around,” he said, gripping their arms lightly. “You two are the beauties.” Before it could get more awkward, he took Bucky’s coffee mug right out of his hand. “Thanks,” he said, leaving the kitchen before Bucky could steal it back.

Bucky frowned, and Steve heard him say, “I told you he was a punk.”

*

Sam needed to leave for D.C. to meet his family at his sister’s place. Everything was a mess, including public transportation, and Steve’s car had been demolished during the battle. He put a call into Fury, and arranged a jet. They’d be taking Barton home, too, and could do a quick detour. “Why don’t you go with him?” he said to Bucky.

“Are you sure?” asked Bucky, surprised but not saying no. Still, he gave Steve a hard look. He knew Bucky had caught on that something was off with him, but he hadn’t pressed Steve on it yet. It was easier to hide it from Sam. Sam was having a harder time dealing with the realities of missing five years. Everything was overwhelming. The world had changed too much, but also not enough. 

“Yeah,” said Steve, speaking low to Bucky. He was honestly worried about Sam. “He could use the support.”

“And what about you?”

Steve opened his mouth to say, “I’ll be fine,” but nothing came out, and he swallowed as he met Bucky’s gaze. Who knew him better than Bucky? No one. 

“I know that goddamn look in your eyes, Steve. You going to tell me what’s going on in that dumb brain of yours?”

Steve watched Sam speak with his sister on the phone as he finished packing a few things into a bag.

“Look,” said Steve, trying to play it off. “It’s just a debriefing, and mission prep with Bruce, to return the Stones. Time travel stuff.” The complexity of the many expressions that crossed Bucky’s face following that statement was an entire conversation all on its own. “When you get back from D.C.,” said Steve, far too calmly. “I’ll tell you everything. Tony’s service is on Friday. Make it back before then.”

Bucky narrowed his gaze, but he shook his head. “I shouldn’t go to that.”

“Everyone is going. That means you too.” 

He could tell Bucky wanted to protest, but then Sam got off the phone, and it was time to leave for the battle site and what remained of the compound.

*

Hank Pym reluctantly gave them enough Pym particles to return the Stones, plus one extra vial for safety, and several Pym disks. Except for Mjolnir and the case holding the Stones, they miniaturized everything Steve would take with him for the mission, to be stored away in various pockets of his utility belt.

Unlike before, Steve wouldn’t have the _Benatar_. Instead, he would be traveling directly through the quantum realm to Morag and then Vormir, in order to return the Power Stone and the Soul Stone to the precise places and times they were taken. Luckily, they had the coordinates to return him to almost the exact moment and location each Stone left, with a one second overlap, using the data preserved in the devices from the previous trips. Tony had made the devices user-friendly. All anyone had to do was enter the time and date and location, and the device did the math for you. But, Steve still wrote each set of coordinates down in a notebook, along with any details he thought useful.

“Pen and paper, huh?” said Bruce, with a warm teasing tone. 

“It’s never let me down, and doesn’t require batteries,” said Steve, staring at the time and date for New Jersey, 1970. Bruce smirked, which was a fun expression on the Hulk. “Besides, it’s just back up. I’ve got them all memorized.” 

They sat together in one of the temporary tents constructed along the riverfront, near the partially built quantum platform. Outside, the clean up continued, interrupting their concentration with the noise of cranes, and men and women shouting orders. 

Sam had called to say he and Bucky had made it back to Brooklyn. They’d meet him later. The quantum tunnel would be finished just before Tony’s memorial service, and Steve would go on the mission the next day. 

Bruce fell silent, staring at the river. He did that often as they worked—they both did, drifting off mid-sentence, caught in memories. That morning, Fury had read them Natasha’s will. It was short, and didn’t take long. She hadn’t wanted a funeral or a service of any kind. Her money went to an orphanage in Russia. Her possessions were buried under tons of rock, but there was hope that some of it could be recovered. She had kept several storage facilities off-site. What few possessions she had thought of value were given to Lila, Barton’s daughter.

“We found these in her safety deposit box,” said Fury, holding several envelopes in his hand. They were the kind of envelope that came with gift cards: square, made of stiff, off-white paper, embossed with her initials. He handed one to Steve, and one to Bruce. The other three would go to Clint, Thor, and one for Tony that would be given to Pepper.

She’d written his name in the center of the envelope, in her easy script with a little swirl around the ‘s’. He passed his finger over the letters, debating whether to open it then or later. But there would never be a good time. He tore it open, and unfolded the piece of paper inside.

_Steve,_

_You were unexpected, but now I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you. I don’t have the words to say what it means to me that you’re my friend and my family. Since the start, you’ve had my back. Thanks for sticking by me all these years._

_Love,  
Natasha_

He stared at the letter for a long time, barely noticing that Bruce had left the tent. His face felt hot while his fingers prickled like they’d gone to sleep. 

“You were special to her,” said Fury. 

Outwardly, he knew he was staring blankly at the piece of paper in his hands, his expression closed and set. But inwardly, he heard Natasha’s voice in a constant loop, repeating over and over again in his mind: see you in a minute. _See you in a minute._

See you in a minute. 

Followed by that achingly familiar smirk of hers, and her green eyes smiling. 

“Thank you,” he said, managing to speak.

If Fury said anything after that, Steve didn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear through the rush of blood in his ears, though he tried to be polite. He refolded the letter, and put it back in the envelope, tucking it between the pages of his notebook. Fury patted his shoulder before leaving him alone in the tent. Steve picked up his pen again, and pretended like he was writing notes, waiting for Bruce to return.

*

After the memorial service, Steve stood on the porch in the exact same spot where he’d stood on the day he and Scott and Natasha had come to speak with Tony. He leaned against the railing and watched the others wandering around the yard by the lake.

Not far away, Sam and Bucky spoke with Fury and Maria Hill. Clint and Wanda stood by the lake, talking quietly to each other. The young people—Clint’s children, Peter Parker, and the new kid Steve had just met, Harley Keener, even Groot—were sitting on the lawn chairs. Nate and Morgan, who were about the same age (though Nate should have been older), sat together on a bench sandwiched between the older kids. Princess Shuri stepped away from her brother to join them. 

The other Guardians stood together on the lawn, looking like they were only being polite, waiting for the right moment to leave. 

Steve heard the screen door open and close behind him. He looked to see Thor taking off his sunglasses. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

He had expected this, though it left him with too many mixed emotions. This would be more than a casual parting for him. “What are you going to do?”

Thor shook his head, then shrugged, shuffling his feet. “It’s time I figure out whom I’m meant to be,” said Thor.

Steve took in a breath, nodding once with his hands in his pockets. From long ago, he remembered Natasha’s words when she had said something similar. _I burned all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one._

To Thor, he said the same thing he’d said to her. “That might take a while.” 

Thor grinned. “Yes. I imagine it might. First, I go to New Asgard, to settle with Valkyrie. She’ll be king now. And then…Rabbit has kindly offered to give me a ride.”

“That should prove interesting,” said Steve, momentarily amused by the kind of trouble Thor was likely to get into with that crowd. 

They looked at each other for a beat before Thor brought his arms around Steve, and he let himself be engulfed. It was like being encircled in prickly, hairy warmth. “Would you do me a favor?” he asked, pulling away to look at Thor properly. “Would you please learn to use email? Maybe make a phone call sometime. Ask Rocket to show you how. An old man gets worried, you know. Call. Write.”

Thor rumbled warmly. “All right. Deal.” Then, he gave Steve a deep, penetrating look that went on for far too long, making Steve squirm. He tended to forget Thor saw things differently than everyone else. His differently colored eyes only enhanced this quality. 

“What?” asked Steve.

“I don’t know,” said Thor, with a smile. “There is something odd about you.” He paused, then added, “Man out of time,” causing Steve to shiver, his skin tingling. Thor grinned dismissively, putting his sunglasses back on. “I suspect you and I will see each other again before too long.” 

“I hope so,” said Steve, suddenly not wanting to let Thor go. 

“Mjolnir will take care of you.” Thor clapped him hard on the shoulder.

Steve tilted his head. “You know I have to give that back, don’t you?” 

“Do you?” asked Thor, with a quick quirk of his eyebrows. Then, he embarrassed Steve by kissing his forehead, and without another word, stepped down from the porch and joined the Guardians.

*

The mission to return the Stones loomed big and impassable ahead of him. He couldn’t see what was on the other side.

It was simpler for him to stay the night on site rather than going back and forth to Brooklyn. After the service, he returned to the compound with Sam and Bucky. They offered to go with him to stay the night as well, and he was grateful. It made things easier. 

They sat together near the tents, talking late into the night. Nearby, a catering truck had been brought in to serve meals. Bruce had eaten his mountain of food and then retired to his own tent, but Steve had other plans, waiting for the right moment. He wasn’t in a hurry. He could sit and listen to Sam talk all night long if need be.

“You know how she is,” said Sam, speaking about his sister. After the Snap, with her entire family gone, Sam’s sister had withdrawn, like so many of them. Steve had made a point of reaching out to her as often as he could, but he hadn’t been much better off either. “She cooks for stress relief. But it got a little out of hand. Bucky nearly died, he’s never seen so much food. Isn’t that right?” Sam turned to Bucky. “Tell him.”

“She’s terrifying,” said Bucky, speaking for the first time in hours. “The food was really good though.” 

“See?” said Sam. “Almost had to get a second jet to carry the leftovers. It’s all in your fridge, by the way. I hope you like collard greens and fried okra.”

“You know I do,” said Steve, with a smile. “Go easy on her. It’s been a tough five years.”

“I know. She figured out how to keep going without her annoying brothers, and without the kids, and now we’re all back, disrupting her peace, and she has to figure everything out all over again.” The comment was meant to be lighthearted, but it spoke to the complicated emotions that were bubbling just below the surface all the time. 

“Sam,” said Steve. “We might have figured out how to keep going…” and his throat closed up on him. He paused before speaking again. “But it was never peaceful. It was just quiet.”

Sam looked shaken, lowering his head. They fell silent, and Steve knew the time had come, finally. He didn’t take his eyes off Sam, wanting these last few precious seconds to stretch as long as possible. Funny thing about time, he thought, how he had so much of it at his fingertips, and yet so little of it as well. How did that work? As he kept his eyes on Sam, he sensed Bucky watching him. 

“I guess we all have to figure out this new world together again,” said Sam, raising his head. 

“You will,” said Steve with a slow smile. He placed all his hope with Sam, gazing at him with wonder.

Sam laughed, and shook his head, and the moment ended. “Well. I gotta hit the latrine, and then find my bed. Being unsnapped is tiring business. You going to stay up much longer?” he asked, looking from Steve to Bucky. Bucky, who hadn’t stopped frowning at Steve, glanced up at Sam now, and something silent passed between them. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Sam said to Steve, though he quirked his eyebrows questioningly at Bucky. 

Steve inhaled slowly, repressing the urge to stand and give Sam a hug. “Soon,” he said. 

“All right,” said Sam as he got up from his seat and left them alone. Steve watched Sam walk away through the darkened woods back to the temporary barracks. 

“What have you got up your sleeve?” asked Bucky.

Steve turned back as soon as Sam was out of view. “I guess I can’t hide from you.” Bucky looked the picture of relaxation, sitting back in his chair with his feet up, but it was all an act. Steve could read the tension flowing off him. “Take a walk with me?”

Bucky scrunched his face. “Okay,” he said, with a healthy amount of dread and curiosity. His expression was so essentially Bucky it made Steve reflexively reach for him, and he had to hide the action by grabbing his jacket. Bucky had changed so much—of course he had, after everything that had happened to him. Steve had changed, too, especially after the past five years—but it was moments like this that reminded him of World War II, both of them wondering what fresh new hell the Commandos would be walking into next. 

They left the circle of light by the tents, slipping quietly through the trees like they were on a mission—treading lightly, not breaking any branches to signal their approach. This close to the river, the forest was even darker, with the moon the only source of light, shimmering on the water. 

The quantum tunnel platform site had a single guard on duty. The Stones were kept in a different location and not out in the open with all the equipment, so there was only minimal security. Steve signaled for Bucky to remain out of sight as he approached. The guard startled when he saw Steve, snapping to attention. “Captain,” he said, rigid and wide-eyed as he saluted. 

“At ease,” said Steve, raising his hand. “It’s all right. I’m not really here. Couldn’t sleep so I thought I would come down and go over the equipment one last time before the mission tomorrow.” 

There was no way the guard had any idea of the nature of Steve’s mission, or what the equipment he was guarding was actually for, but Steve knew the guard wouldn’t admit that. Instead, he looked politely at the equipment along with Steve, like he knew what he was doing and what it meant. 

“What’s your name?” asked Steve.

“Colby, sir.”

“Well, Colby. How long are you on duty?” asked Steve, conversationally. 

The guard jittered a little, nervous as he hooked his fingers into his belt. “My shift ends at four a.m.”

Steve glanced at his watch. It was twelve minutes past midnight. “You’ve got hours still.”

“It’s okay, sir. I’m used to it.”

“Good man,” said Steve, and Colby appeared to get taller. Steve moved over to the console, staring down at the buttons and toggles. “Listen,” he started. “I’m going to be here for a little while…about five minutes. Why don’t you take a quick break? Get a cup of coffee.”

Colby hesitated, looking very uncertain. “Uh, sir. My orders—”

“I’m serious,” said Steve, interrupting, injecting the full weight of his authority behind his voice. “I’ll be here, keeping watch. Take the opportunity while I’m offering it, ’cause you have four hours ahead of you out here all by yourself in the dark otherwise.”

“I don’t—”

“Trust me,” said Steve. Ultimately, Colby had no choice, because Steve didn’t give him one. Looking grateful, but also confused and like he didn’t actually know what just happened, Colby thanked him, and then head back through the darkened forest. 

Steve waited until Colby was completely out of sight before he beckoned Bucky over. Quickly, he started the generators. They hummed noisily, but Steve knew there was no one nearby to hear it. He turned back to the console. The platform buzzed with energy. 

“Steve, what are you doing?” asked Bucky, looking pale in the moonlight. 

Without answering, Steve crossed to the nearby utility tent, entering the access code to the storage container where the GPS devices and quantum suits were kept. He took two and returned to Bucky. “Put this on,” said Steve, taking hold of Bucky’s right hand. 

He put his on his left hand, programming the time and date and location before doing the same to Bucky’s, then syncing them to the console. 

“Steve,” asked Bucky, again.

Steve glanced at him, taking note of the crease between Bucky’s eyebrows, the etched in worry. He stopped. It wasn’t fair to drag Bucky along like this, expecting he would follow without question. 

“If you’re up for it, I’m buying us a little time,” he said. “Well, technically, I guess I’m stealing us a little time. Borrowing,” he amended, holding up the two extra Pym particle vials he’d taken from 1970. 

Bucky swallowed, his jaw tightening as he looked at the platform and the console. “How long are we going to be gone?”

Relief flooded over Steve, seeing that Bucky hadn’t flat out said no. “The guard will be back in less than five minutes. So, before then.”

A look of incredulity flitted over Bucky’s face. “Why do you want to do this? Why do we need…” then he fell silent, understanding causing him to frown. “Tomorrow,” he said, his mouth tightening. “The mission. You’re not planning on coming back.”

“Of course I’m planning on coming back.” Bucky’s hard look made Steve’s heart clang loudly in his chest. “All right…” and once again blood rushed in his ears, and his fingers tingled. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, exactly. Nothing’s fixed. Don’t know what I can do. I don’t want to leave you. But…I’ve got this one chance. To see Peggy. And also, maybe, I don’t know, maybe… I can....” 

Steve couldn’t even say the words, or say her name, or whisper what he wanted. There was so much that he wanted. The note from Natasha weighed on his mind. In his hand, he had a working time machine. 

“Shit,” said Bucky, his expression unreadable to Steve. It was both stunned and sad, and happy and vaguely nauseous all at the same time. “So? Tomorrow?” he asked again. 

“So, come tomorrow, from your point of view, I’ll be gone a few seconds. From mine, if…” He was helpless to say anything with more certainty. “It could be years for me. Decades, maybe. So, I’m buying us, you and me, a little time. Unless, you don’t want to.”

Bucky gave him a disgusted look, like how could he ask that question. “What about Sam?”

Steve’s insides deflated. He shook his head. Sam was the one part of this plan that hurt him. Leaving, even though from Sam’s perspective he wouldn’t know it, was going to make a big hole in Steve’s heart, and he was just going to have to deal with it. 

“Sam belongs to this time. He just got his family back. I can’t take him away from that. He’d come if I asked him to. He hasn’t once not been there for me since I’ve met him. But it would selfish to take him with us.”

“And what about me?” asked Bucky, a small crease between his eyes. 

“I don’t mind being selfish with you,” said Steve. After he said it, he wondered if he should have. He didn’t say it to place different values on his friendships with Sam and Bucky, or to say they meant differently to him. They were his best friends, along with Natasha, and she was gone. 

Bucky studied him, and then with a little smile, he shook his head and punched Steve in the shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” said Steve, breathing easier. “You with me?”

“Oh, God,” said Bucky, looking nauseous again. “Yeah, I guess I am. I hope you know what you’re doing and we don’t end up in like the Ice Age. Am I going to throw up?” he asked. 

“Just think of it as payback. You like dinosaurs don’t you? ” Steve answered seriously. 

“Ha ha. Funny,” said Bucky. 

Steve activated Bucky’s suit, and then slotted one of the extra particle tubes into place. He did the same to his suit. He met Bucky’s eyes, and then nodded. “Get on the platform.”

Muttering to himself, Bucky did as instructed, looking like he might be seasick already. 

Moving quickly since they’d used up so much of their time talking, Steve hustled over to the console and programmed the timestamp to bring them back in five seconds, keeping the gateway open. He removed his wristwatch and left it balanced on the console. The time read fifteen minutes after midnight, with the second hand just passing the six. 

He hesitated, debating with himself for a few more vital seconds before he held out his hand. It took two beats of his heart, but then he heard the whistle of approach and Mjolnir flew toward him. He stepped back from the force of its impact. 

Steve flicked the last switch, and the platform hummed in preparation. He counted down, “Five, four, three…two…” leaping up next to Bucky, holding Mjolnir. Their eyes met, both their helmets closing over their faces, and the quantum tunnel opened up beneath them. 

**The Second Five Years**

The trip through the quantum realm flashed blurred and chaotic around him before they emerged again outside the perimeter of the compound. Bucky wobbled, unsteady as the effects dissipated, and Steve took hold of his arm to steady him as the suits retracted and returned to their devices.

“God, that was terrible,” said Bucky, squinting. 

“You get used to it,” said Steve. 

“Do I have to?” grimaced Bucky, straightening up to look around. It was daytime. They were on a hill not too far from the main entrance. He could see the familiar outline of the Avengers Compound shining in the bright sunlight. A dewy fresh morning breeze whistled through the trees. “Where—” Bucky stopped and corrected himself. “When are we?”

There was an explosion nearby, cutting through the preternatural quiet, followed by glass shattering. Not far, a plume of dark gray smoke rose in the air. Steve turned toward the sound. Further south, across the river and in the direction of Poughkeepsie, they could see more smoke stacks on the horizon.

“A few minutes after the Snap,” said Steve, in a flat tone. 

“Oh.” Realization darkened Bucky’s blue eyes, and he winced. “Why here? Or…why now?”

“Because no one’s hunting you,” said Steve, and their eyes met. “Or hunting me, for that matter. Come on, we better get going.” 

Once they got to the road, they stayed underneath the tree line and off the tarmac, but it didn’t take long before they found the source of the earlier explosion. A tanker truck had over turned, sliding on its side to a halt on the asphalt. Another car had crashed into it, causing the explosion. The fire had started to die down, but there were still dark welts of black smoke billowing from the car’s engine. 

They stopped to inspect the scene. “There’s no one in here,” said Bucky, peering into the cab of the truck, but Steve stood transfixed, staring at the empty child car seat in the back of the other car. There was a smear of blood on the car door. One of the doors stood open, indicating someone had been there. If there had been a child in that seat, it had gotten out. Bucky came around to stand beside him and then stopped when he saw what Steve was looking at. “Oh,” he said, looking to see if he could spot any survivors hiding in the woods nearby.

“Whoever they are, they got out.” He turned to Bucky. There’s a pleading tone to his voice, because there was nothing they could do. He knew this, but it rubbed against every fiber of his being. He also knew that, if there had been someone to save in that car or in the truck, he would have done it. “We’re not actually here to change any of this.”

“I know,” said Bucky, with sigh. 

They continued on, and less than a quarter of a mile down the road they found two more empty cars, both idling and empty. One was a flashy luxury sports vehicle, gunmetal and sleek, creeping along at an angle down the street. It would eventually roll over the verge and into the ditch. The other was an older model Cadillac sedan, about twice as long as it was wide. The driver had managed to put it into park before they disappeared. 

Bucky didn’t question why Steve chose the older car. No security system, no onboard computer. Steve peered into the open window before opening the car door. The seats were cracked leather and the interior smelled like a mixture of cigar smoke and the artificial cotton candy air-freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. Steve tried not to feel if there was dust left on the seats. It had half a tank of gas, just enough to get them where they needed to go. Beside him, Bucky opened the glove compartment, and looked at the registration. 

“Stanley and Edith Horowitz,” he said, staring at the piece of paper, then putting it back in the glove compartment. 

It could have been Stanley or Edith or both. “Well,” he said, placing Mjolnir in the backseat, before shifting into gear and driving around the other car, heading north toward Albany. “In five years, we can pay them back for lending us their car.” 

During the drive, Bucky fidgeted. Steve glanced at him, reading him like a book. 

“Go ahead,” he said, resigned. Bucky exhaled a gust of breath, but he immediately turned on the radio, fiddling with the stations. Several had only static, but he did find a news station giving updates. Steve had lived through the Snap the first time, and didn’t especially need to live through the gory details a second time. But he understood Bucky’s curiosity, and getting the local news was a good idea. 

Less than two hours later, they drove down a shady, tree-lined street in a suburb of Albany. The house sat undisturbed, with darkened windows. This street happened to be quiet, though many weren’t. Albany was like every other city—fires and accidents, chaos. Survivors wandered around with expressions of confusion and horror, and the few operational emergency vehicles sirens wailing in the distance. 

Natasha had chosen the house because it had a big hedge and several trees that hid it from the street, plus a fence guarding the long winding driveway. And it sat on an acre of land where they could stash the quinjet. Steve got out of the car, took a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the chain around the fence. Bucky drove the car in, and Steve locked up after. Another few minutes and they were standing in front of a large, charming family house that resembled a farmhouse from the 1800s. 

“Who lived here?” asked Bucky.

“I did,” said Steve, staring at the exterior of the house. “This was—is—one of our safe houses while we were on the run.”

His heart pounding, he unlocked the front door and was immediately assaulted with memories. Muted sunlight snuck in through slits and cracks in the blinds and curtains, casting shafts of light here and there. It smelled like home. They had several safe houses, making sure they never stayed in one place too long, but he and Sam and Natasha had been in this house when Bruce had called. From here, they’d taken the jet to Scotland, to locate Vision and Wanda. In the present time, that had only been the day before. 

In their rush, the house had been left in disarray. There were plates in the sink, left over from breakfast and lunch. It had been Steve’s turn to do the dishes, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. Natasha’s several laptops sat on a corner table, her sweater left on the back of a chair. Sam had a bad habit of leaving his shoes in the middle of the living room floor. 

Steve half expected to see Natasha walk down the hallway, to hear Sam humming to himself as he puttered around in the kitchen. He thought he heard the soft _tap tap swish_ of Natasha’s ballet shoes over the hardwood floor in the enclosed porch where he and Sam had made a makeshift barre for her. Their energy and presence still existed in this house.

His and Sam’s rooms were on the second floor, while Natasha and Wanda had the downstairs bedrooms. Aware that Bucky was watching him closely, but unable to stop himself, he headed down the hallway, pausing at the open door to Natasha’s bathroom. He could smell her shampoo. The towels were still damp, and her hair products were left on the counter. Due to the nature of their lives while fugitives, where they had to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice, everything of personal value had been kept on the jet—but they had gotten lax. 

He hesitated before going into her bedroom, then he pushed the door open. The room was neat and tidy, though some of her clothes were flung across the bed, and she’d left a hairbrush on the bureau, a few strands of blonde hair wound around it. He found two photographs stuck into a frame on the vanity. One was a picture of Natasha and Sam, a selfie Natasha had taken of the both of them, sitting next to each other on the quinjet. In the photo she had red hair. Sam was staring right at the camera while Natasha had a crease between her eyes and only half a smile, trying to get the angle of her camera phone just right. The second photograph was of the three of them. Steve was in the background, unaware that the other two where taking his picture while laughing at him. 

She never should have taken the pictures, let alone had them printed. If he had known about it, he would have given her a stern look, and told her to burn the prints. He took the photos and stared at them for a long time, before tucking both away between the pages of his notebook. 

Bucky stood patiently beside him, glancing around the room with curiosity, but not saying anything. 

“Come on,” said Steve, ushering Bucky out and closing the door firmly behind him. “We have work to do.”

It was tempting to remain there in the safe house but he knew they couldn’t. After the Snap, he had never returned to the Albany safe house—it held too many memories of Sam—but he wasn’t certain whether Natasha ever returned or not. And, he thought, they shouldn’t remain anywhere near the eastern seaboard. 

But the house had many things they could take with them. In the garage, Steve found his team’s repurposed SHIELD Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, fully gassed and ready to go. He and Bucky changed, carefully folding their time travel clothes from the future in vacuum-sealed packages. They kept wearing the time travel devices, but moved them from around their hand to their forearms, hidden beneath clothing. With fresh new burner phones, they took each other’s pictures, to remind themselves of what they looked like. 

Bucky picked through Sam’s wardrobe. “He wouldn’t mind,” said Bucky, with a kind of half wince, half shrug. 

Steve grinned. “Oh, he totally would.” 

They packed all the guns, ammunition, and tactical gear. Steve went through the food stock, packing the dried goods to take with them, as well as all the bottled water. They couldn’t use any of the IDs Natasha had created. None matched Bucky, and the Steve of this time would know those aliases. With Natasha’s computer setup, Bucky created two new identities for them, making sure the SUV car registration matched. Luckily, the Snap left everything in such chaos that the IDs were mostly a precaution. 

Steve took a pry bar, and lifted up several floorboards in the enclosed porch, revealing a hidden space, pulling out two medium-sized duffle bags full of cash. 

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “I guess you guys had a decent setup—safe houses, cash, all this equipment, a jet.”

Steve shook his head. “There were plenty of times where we barely ate. What you’re seeing here, this is at the end of it, after we’d gotten the hang of being on the run all the time. Thanks to Natasha,” he added, gazing around the house, seeing Natasha everywhere he looked. No, there was no way he could remain in this house, so full of memories that scraped at him like sandpaper. “Once she joined us, her training as a spy came in handy. I think we’re all set. Let’s go.” 

Before they left, Bucky parked the Cadillac on the street, and Steve chained the gate again.

They went first to an Army Navy Surplus store and stocked up on camping gear, propane tanks and heaters, a gas powered generator, more ammunition, and anything else they thought might come in handy. The store was empty, abandoned, eery in its silence. Bucky remained on look out by the front windows, nervous and on high alert as Steve gathered what they wanted. The radio station had started reporting looters. 

At a gas station, they filled up as many five-gallon gas cans as they could fit in the car. They were not the only ones. The gas station lacked attendants, but two other men filled up their car tanks. Everyone looked nervously at each other, no one lingering for long. In a few weeks, there would be very little gasoline to be found anywhere, as the supply coming into the country dried up. Steve knew it wouldn’t be just gasoline, either. All utilities—natural gas, water, electricity, waste and garbage disposal—had long periods of interruption. A few power plants had explosions, and a nuclear reactor almost went critical before it was effectively shut down. There hadn’t been enough people to manage it all. It would take almost two years before some kind of new normal was found.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but drive out of Albany. Steve opened a map of the continental United States and held it across the dashboard for both he and Bucky to look at as they sat in the front seat of the Tahoe. 

“Where to?” asked Bucky. 

Steve looked at the map, considering where would be the best place for them to ride out the next five years. Steve glanced up, ready to ask a question but he was arrested by the sight of Bucky sitting in the front seat next to him. The day had slipped into early evening, and the sky outside matched the color of Bucky’s eyes perfectly. Some of Bucky’s etched in sadness had gone. He seemed almost excited, eager for the next leg of this wild adventure. It left Steve speechless, gazing at him. 

Though Steve had gone with his gut when he had asked Bucky to step on that platform with him, since then he had been plagued by doubt. What had he been thinking? What right did he have to drag Bucky with him? And to this time, that was so full of sadness and regret? But he sensed no regret from Bucky now, only a waiting kind of excitement and curiosity. 

Since SHIELD fell, Steve had been trying to get to this moment, and here it was—five years in the past. Bucky got himself free of Hydra, and Steve had left him safe in Wakanda only to lose him again, and to lose him in a way that had left Steve with no enemy to fight. But, here they were. Here, at last, despite whatever tomorrow would bring. Steve would take what he could, even if he had to carve it out of time itself. 

Bucky quirked his eyebrows at him. “Any ideas?” 

Steve shook his head, struggling to find his voice. “What about Oregon?” he managed, clearing his throat. “I’ve never been.”

“Hm,” said Bucky, frowning at the map. He scratched his forehead, obviously trying to search his memory. “Not sure I’ve ever been there, either.” He snapped the map, folding it to show the part they needed. “All right. Oregon it is.”

They grinned at each other, and Steve started the car, pulling onto the highway.

*

It probably would have been more prudent for them to spend the night in Albany, and start on their trip in the morning, but Steve had been reluctant to remain in that house. It meant they started their road trip with very little sleep. Steve took the first shift, taking mostly back roads, and then Bucky drove for the rest of the night into the morning. By nine o’clock the next day, they’d reached Chicago and the second safe house.

Already, during their drive they had passed several ghost towns—those that had small populations before the Snap now seemingly abandoned. If there were survivors, they didn’t show themselves. Steve was on the lookout for instances of violence, and though they did see looting, mostly they saw people gathering to help each other. It hadn’t taken long for signs to be hung from stores and across bridges—call this number for help, gather at this address for information. Are you alone? Go to this stadium, or to this school, or this town hall. We can help. 

An hour west of Chicago, they arrived at the second safe house, a small two-bedroom bungalow with a big back yard located down a wild-looking cul-de-sac. They slept for the rest of the day and all the way through the night. Where before Steve hadn’t been able to be near Natasha’s things, now, he slept in her room. She was alive right now, he thought as he drifted toward sleep. Thousands of miles away, she was standing beside the other Steve, arriving back at the Avengers Compound after leaving Wakanda. They would be recovering Fury’s pager soon, and starting deep space scans searching for Thanos. Even farther away, Tony was lost in space, injured. Steve took out his compass to look at the picture of Peggy Carter. Then he took out Natasha’s letter to him and read it again. He fell asleep thinking of five years ago, and right now. 

In the morning, Steve climbed onto the roof of the cabin to have a look around. A few minutes later, Bucky joined him, carefully carrying two mugs of coffee. They sat and sipped in silence.

There was hardly any activity, in any direction they looked. 

“You were right,” said Bucky. He hadn’t combed his hair yet, and the way it stuck up in the back made Steve smile. 

“Hm,” answered Steve. “Right about what?”

“I don’t even hear any birds. No cars. Nothing. We should be able to hear the highway from here. But it’s not peaceful. This isn’t peace. It’s like, an empty space in music—noise on either side, but not here. It’s just quiet.” 

Steve swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee, and it burned going down. He managed to nod, staring at the brown liquid.

“Hey,” said Bucky, placing his hand on Steve’s upper arm until Steve looked at him. Bucky’s eyes were a clear, morning-sky blue. Perhaps the clearest Steve had seen them since before 1943. “You get us back. _She_ gets us back.”

Suddenly, Steve couldn’t see at all, his vision blurred. He turned blindly toward Bucky. The metal arm came around him, and he gripped Bucky tight, his face buried in his neck. They sat for a long time, until their coffee grew too cold to drink.

*

Four days later they arrived at the Oregon coast. The Pacific Ocean was slate gray underneath overcast skies, with waves foaming all along the beach that stretched for miles in either direction. They parked the Tahoe along a bluff. Outside, the air was fresh, with a buffeting wind constantly blowing, whipping Bucky’s hair in every direction, flapping Steve’s T-shirt. The cool wind, tangy with the scent of the sea, felt heavenly on his face and skin after the long hours driving. Steve tilted his face up, and closed his eyes.

There were rows and rows of empty waterfront houses. They could have moved into any one of them, but it felt too exposed, too open. Instead, they got back in the Tahoe and drove further north. It took them another couple of days, but Bucky’s eagle eyes eventually spotted a dirt road they turned onto on a whim. The road wound around, going up into the mountains along the coast, near Tillamook. The house—more of a modern cabin—was surrounded by trees, backed up against a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. Two cars were parked in the driveway. 

Steve and Bucky looked at each other, and then silently parted, with Bucky going left and Steve going right, in opposite directions as they circled the house. If there was someone home, they didn’t want to startle them. But the house had the same silent weight of sudden unexplained absence that was characteristic of so many homes after the Snap. 

Steve found a large back yard—he judged the house had about an acre of land, most of it covered in trees. Whoever had lived here had loved to garden, that much was evident. There were carefully maintained flowerbeds, small footpaths, benches placed with a view of the ocean. The garden appeared to be a work in progress, with half of it remaining wild. There was a greenhouse that took up a lot of space. Steve opened the door and found rows and rows of marijuana plants. Well, he thought, amused, they were in Oregon. 

He heard barking, and went back to the house. Bucky was squatting down on the deck, looking through sliding glass doors at a large black dog, a Labrador, barking up a storm, jumping up and down against the glass. 

“He’s been stuck inside all this time,” said Bucky, glanced at Steve.

“Hopefully he had food and water.” Then, he saw a cat running up beside the dog. The cat, white and gray striped with a fluffy white belly, pawed at the glass as well. He could hear its muted meowing. “Is there an alarm?”

“Already disabled.”

“Okay. Open the door,” said Steve. He’d seen enough. No one was home.

Bucky picked the lock on the sliding door. They were careful not to let either dog or cat out, shutting the screen door behind them. Inside, the house smelled of rotting food and the unmistakable odors of a dog who hadn’t been able to go outside, and a cat whose liter box hadn’t been cleaned in several days. 

The dog barked and barked, and then backed away and went silent as he looked at Steve and Bucky, clearly uncertain. The cat, on the other hand, immediately rose up and placed her paws on Steve’s leg, looking at him and meowing questioningly, as if asking, “Where are our humans?”

Bucky went down on his knees, holding out a hand. It didn’t take long for the dog to warm up to him. “Good boy,” said Bucky, rubbing and scratching the dog’s head, turning his collar to read the nametag. “Max. Your name is Max.”

Steve let the cat sniff his fingers, then also turned her collar to read her nametag as well. “And this is Pixie,” he said. The cat meowed in answer. She didn’t quite let Steve pet her, but she also remained close by him, right by his feet. 

The doors from the backyard led into a kitchen with turquoise tiles and a large island counter. Both dog and cat had automatic feeders and self-filling water bowls placed off to the side behind the breakfast nook, but those had run out of food and water. A newspaper had been left open, beside two half drunk cups of coffee, one on either side. The liquid had almost dried up. There had been two place settings, the plates wiped clean by the pets. 

Someone had been cooking eggs, but either the cat or the dog had gotten into it, and the frying pan was now on the floor, overturned, bits of half cooked dried egg everywhere. The trashcan had been knocked over. Everything that had been left on the counters had been thrown aside, probably from Pixie searching for food.

They had heard on the radio how most townships had purposely turned off water and power, and shut down gas lines, to prevent houses and apartment buildings from burning down or having water damage, from ranges or ovens left on, from faucets left on. 

Bucky tried the water faucet in the kitchen sink, saw that there was water, and filled Max’s and Pixie’s water bowls. Both animals drank for a long time. He searched around until he found dry food for both of them.

They ventured further into the house. It had three medium-sized bedrooms, two bathrooms. The kitchen, dining, and living room made one large space. 

Bucky picked up a stack of mail while Steve looked at the pictures hung on the walls. Two women, both in their late thirties: one had brown skin and a cheerful bright beaming smile, and the other was a tall brunette. She appeared slightly more reserved than her partner, but in most of the pictures she had a lopsided, careful smile. As he looked at more of the pictures, Steve saw the brunette had been sick for a while. There were pictures of her in a hospital, with friends or family all around, and more from her homecoming, a banner over her head that read, “Welcome home, Laurie.”

“Tamara and Laurie Taylor-Guzman,” said Bucky, putting down the mail. 

Tamara and Laurie had been together for ten years, married for three. No kids, just a dog and a cat. They gardened on the weekends, weren’t opposed to a little recreational marijuana, and enjoyed an active sex life as evidenced by the box of sex toys Steve and Bucky found in their bedroom that made Steve blush from head to toe and gave Bucky a fit of the giggles. The box of sex toys hadn’t even been hidden, but pulled out from under the bed. The bed had been left unmade. 

Tamara was a lawyer, with a practice in family law. Laurie was an artist, working from home. She sometimes dabbled in photography. They had met in college. Laurie was a year into her remission from cancer. 

It was easy to read the clues, to learn all about Tamara and Laurie. These women had led open lives.

“This was a good home,” said Steve. 

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “We can keep it safe for them. Take care of Max and Pixie.”

Steve smiled at him. 

They opened all the windows. Steve started in on the kitchen, throwing away the rotten food, cleaning out the refrigerator. He scrubbed the counters and the range, and mopped the floor. Bucky took care of all of Max’s messes, then cleaned out Pixie’s liter box. Several of the rugs couldn’t be saved. 

Max whined. “It’s okay, buddy,” Bucky said to the dog. “We know you couldn’t help it.”

It took about four hours of labor, but by early evening the house smelled fresh and clean, and the kitchen sparkled as the sun set over the Pacific. Bucky cobbled together a meal and they ate on the deck, with Max lying down near Bucky’s feet, and Pixie meowing from behind the screen door. Steve made a fire in the fire pit. 

“To Tamara and Laurie,” said Bucky, raising a beer bottle. The fact that Tamara and Laurie had beer in their fridge raised them even higher in his estimation. 

Steve inhaled deeply, breathing in the sea salt air, gazing over the ocean, ablaze from the sunset. In all of his travels, he hadn’t spent a lot of time on the west coast. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen a sunset over the Pacific—he didn’t think he had, because he would have remembered those colors. 

Someone from the local government would show up eventually, to take census of survivors. Possibly, Tamara and Laurie had other family or friends who would show up demanding to know what they were doing there, and kick them out. Or there could be complications with the city or state, since they were effectively squatting. They would deal with those things if and when they happened.

He raised his beer bottle. “Thanks,” he said.

*

They tried to lead quiet lives. It took over a month before the census showed up, triggering an early warning system Bucky had set up by the turn off from the main road, giving them just enough warning to take Max and Pixie and hide. Steve shrunk the Tahoe and put it in his pocket. The census found the house empty.

Driving into the local town, Steve managed to do a little research. Tamara only had one living relative—an eighty-year-old mother in a nursing home in Seattle. Laurie and her two brothers were orphaned at a young age, and put in the foster system. One brother died as a teenager, and the other didn’t survive the Snap. 

Using fake IDs, they put in a bid to buy the property, hacking into the system to make sure they were the only ones bidding. After the Snap, the saying “possession is nine tenths of the law” came into real practice, and there were a lot of handshake deals made. No one looked too closely, and the government wanted occupied houses. They wanted the semblance of normalcy. But, even being nominal owners of the house and land, they kept their presence hidden.

A week into their stay, Steve discovered a path at the far end of the garden that lead down the cliff side to the beach below. In the summer, he went for long swims in the ocean, returning to the house dripping wet and getting yelled at by Bucky for tracking sand and mud all over the house. 

Bucky took up Tamara and Laurie’s gardening habit, spending hours outside with Max and Pixie escorting him everywhere he went. They’d let Pixie outside, once they were reasonably sure she wouldn’t run away. 

Steve dragged Bucky for morning runs with him and Max. In retaliation, Bucky made Steve re-tile the garden walkways. 

They had years of catching up to do. Steve talked a little about what it had been like—the first five years. Bucky spoke often of Wakanda, and how much he missed it. They mentioned Sam almost every day. Steve tried to talk about Natasha, but he didn’t get very far. They did not talk about Tony, though they each wore the time travel device Tony created around their forearms and only ever took them off to shower or bathe or swim in the ocean. But any conversation about Tony inevitably turned to Howard and Maria Stark. Even if they were never mentioned, the space at the end of a sentence carried their names anyway. It always put Bucky into a mood that lasted for hours, sometimes for days.

Bucky made Steve tell him about space travel. He was less interested in other planets, but wanted to know everything Steve could tell him about flying. About interstellar, intergalactic, travel. “Tell me again,” he said. “About the jump points. How do they work? Who made them?”

Steve was sorry he didn’t have better answers. He should have thought to ask Rocket about it—but he had never dared to hope that Bucky would come back to him, and that he would want to know about space travel. 

Neither he nor Bucky used the master bedroom, the one that belonged to Tamara and Laurie. By Steve’s way of thinking, they were guests in this house, and therefore they should use the guest bedrooms. Steve insisted Bucky use the main guest room. Though Bucky said he had been very comfortable in Wakanda, and before then there had been that apartment in Romania, Bucky had never had the joy of sleeping on a ridiculous fluffy mattress. Steve thought he should have the experience. 

“How do you sleep on those things?” complained Bucky, cracking his back over breakfast about a month into their stay. 

Steve grinned at him.

Steve slept in Laurie’s office studio, on the foldout futon bed. He didn’t mind. He liked being around Laurie’s art things, and helped himself to one of her unused sketch pads and several of her graphite pencils, promising that he’d replace them as soon as he could. 

He liked to sit on the covered deck, sketching, as it rained.

They both had plenty of sleepless nights. It felt like a different world in Oregon, but tomorrow pressed in on them from the future—the tomorrow of five years from now. The tomorrow where Sam lived. Where Steve wouldn’t have Tony anymore to make the impossible possible. Where he didn’t have Natasha. Steve never forgot that the Stones were waiting for him in the future. 

On those nights when neither of them could sleep, they stayed up together, preferring to sit on the deck, even when it got too cold, setting up propane heaters and bringing out all the blankets. Max cuddled with Bucky, while Pixie liked to curl up next to Steve, pawing at his sketchbook. 

He still took out his compass and looked at Peggy’s picture. Sometimes he took out the picture of Sam and Natasha.

“We’re out of milk,” said Bucky, catching him putting the compass away. He’d gotten up to make hot chocolate for both of them, setting down their mugs before crawling back under his pile of blankets. He lifted up a corner to let Max crawl onto his lap. “Oof. Max, you’re heavy. And we’re running low on eggs and butter.”

Obtaining fresh perishables was a constant problem. There was plenty of food, but they often had to go far out of their way to get to it. A quick jaunt down to the local store didn’t cut it anymore. 

“Okay. Why don’t we go all the way into Portland? It’s Saturday. There should be a market.”

“Really?” asked Bucky, straightening up and looking both excited and worried. Going into Portland was a big deal, and they had thus far avoided it. But it was inevitable that they would need to go to a real city at one point, and not only for fresh food. They were running low on gasoline and propane, as well as pet food. Steve wanted to find an art supply store, if possible, and maybe a place that sold wet suits so he could continue to swim during the winter months. Bucky had been talking about needing things for the garden. “Are you sure we’re up for it?”

Going to Portland meant being around people again. “One way to find out.”

Early in the morning, they locked up the house, with Max and Pixie giving them looks of frank betrayal through the windows. Bucky had taken down the mailbox and the sign that marked the turn off for the dirt road leading up to the house, and had created a blind to mask it from the main road. The house wasn’t visible anymore. They had decided to take Tamara and Laurie’s Subaru wagon instead of the Tahoe, but switched out the license plate with plates from an abandoned car. 

Even with half of its population gone, after months of solitude and only each other for company, Portland was an explosion of noise and activity. They had breakfast at a popular diner in the heart of downtown, asking the waitress for directions. “There’s a market, right? We heard about it on the radio. Can you tell us where it is?” asked Steve.

“By the university,” said the waitress, but then she looked at him more closely, and Steve had to pretend to find his menu very interesting. He had grown out the beard again, and wore sunglasses and a baseball cap, but it wasn’t the best disguise. 

Bucky cleared his throat, pulling the waitress’s attention away from Steve. She also gave Bucky a curious look, but Steve thought it was for entirely different reasons. “Do you know if they have household goods there?” asked Bucky. “Like, for gardens and stuff?”

“They might,” she answered, doubtfully. “But the Home Depot is back in business. You can try there.”

The waitress turned away to attend to other patrons, Bucky eyeing her before turning back to Steve. “Can’t hide that pretty face of yours,” he teased Steve. 

Steve snorted. Leaving some cash on the table, he got up from his seat. “Come on, let’s go.”

The outdoor market was big and sprawling. Farmers and vendors came in from across the tri-state area to sell their wares. They bought all the fresh food they could reasonably eat before it could go bad. Fortunately, the electricity had been steady for the past month, so the fridge was working, making it easier to buy fresh meat and vegetables. Bucky tried every food sample, buying homemade jam and honey, caramel candy and special mixed spice rubs. He bought more fresh fruit than they could eat. 

A vendor gave them directions to the Home Depot. They decided to split up, to make things go faster, planning to meet up again at the bar called Bailey’s Taproom not far from the diner they’d had breakfast in, and hopefully return home before evening. Bucky needed the car, so Steve sent him off to do his errands, while Steve wandered around Portland to find an art supply store as well as a sporting goods store that could hopefully sell him a wetsuit. 

Four hours later, burdened by several packages from one store called Michael’s and another called Dick’s, Steve had everything he needed. Their cell phones were working, so Steve texted Bucky: _All done._ Bucky texted back: _At the bar._

It had been good to do so much walking, but he was relieved when he spotted the Subaru parked near the bar. He unlocked the car to put his purchases inside before heading in to find Bucky. 

Bailey’s Taproom had twenty-foot ceilings and an entire wall of windows casting light across exposed brick. The menu above the bar boasted an extensive list of beers, but most had been crossed out. Steve could tell the bar would have been a very hip, cool place, and even now there were a few young, edgy looking professionals scattered throughout the large space. 

He spotted Bucky right away, sitting at the bar with a flight of beers, talking to a young woman who was sitting next to him. As Steve grew closer, he realized Bucky’s friend was their waitress from the diner, now off duty and out of uniform. 

Not wanting to interfere, Steve sat a couple of stools over, and asked the bartender to pour him a pint of the bartender’s top choice. Bucky looked over at him, and gave Steve an open, beaming smile, his eyes crinkling in the corner as he laughed at something the woman said. He’d clearly had a good day. It was such a change from the solemn-eyed, cornered-animal Bucky he and Sam had found in Romania, and nearly as big a change from the quiet, taciturn Bucky recovering in Wakanda. Whenever Steve began to doubt what he had done, stealing this time apart for themselves—and his doubts came frequent and often—he would catch sight of Bucky smiling openly and without reservation, and it soothed the constant ache in his chest.

“Well,” said the woman, with a quick glance at Steve before she smiled again at Bucky. “I’ve got to hit the bank before I head home. Thanks for the drink.” She came in to give Bucky a sort of half-hug, which startled Bucky, before she waved at Steve and left. 

Steve raised an eyebrow, amused. “Who’s got the pretty face now?”

It pleased Steve to see Bucky flush pink. “Oh, come on,” protested Bucky. “It’s not like that. She was just being nice. Spent the entire conversation telling me all about her boyfriend, whom she met after the Snap, and sometimes feels guilty about because of the old boyfriend who’s gone now. Didn’t know how to tell her the old boyfriend would be back in a few years.”

“They’ll figure it out. You’re allowed to talk to girls, you know. I would even encourage it.”

Bucky frowned at him, and shook his head. Steve was sorry to see the lighthearted smile leave his face. 

It was something they’d talked about, but not often. Bucky didn’t hide the fact that Hydra had messed him up pretty bad, and he didn’t feel ready for anything more intimate than a casual conversation at a bar. Steve didn’t push it, since making personal connections when they would just have to leave in a few years wasn’t wise. 

Steve smiled gently, resting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder before raising his pint to his lips. He was swallowing when an explosion shook the ground and rattled all the windows. A second later, they heard screaming. 

Adrenaline shot through him, and he and Bucky looked at each other before rushing with everyone else out onto the street. Halfway down the block, black smoke poured out of a building. 

“Bank robbers,” said the bartender, who’d also run out to see the source of the explosion. “They’ve targeted that bank before. It’s the only one open in the whole city right now.” It was said in such a matter-of-fact tone, like it was inevitable that bank robbers would strike mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Steve wondered how often this had happened. He met the bartender’s eyes who shrugged at Steve’s surprised expression. “It’s all a bit wild west these days, isn’t it?”

“The bank, Steve,” said Bucky, brow creased with worry, and Steve remembered that Bucky’s waitress friend said she needed to go to the bank before heading home. 

Their eyes met for the length of time to ask a question, and have it answered. “You go around back, get in that way,” said Steve, already heading toward the source of the explosion, with Bucky at his side. “I’ll see about getting in through the roof. Keep your phone handy.”

“Got it,” said Bucky, and he disappeared around the corner. 

The bank was only a couple of stories tall. Steve broke into the office building next door. The first floor appeared totally empty, and Steve didn’t bother with the elevator, knowing it would be disabled. He found the door to the stairway, and began taking two or three steps at a time as fast as he could, until he reached the third floor. From the windows, he could see the roof of the bank. He broke the glass, then took a running leap, landing in a tuck and roll on the bank’s rooftop. A moment later he found the access door, slipping inside, smelling smoke. 

He took out his phone and called Bucky. “I’m in. What do you see?” 

“Five men,” answered Bucky, whispering. “All wearing masks. They put the hostages in the vault.” He paused, then added, “They’re not professionals.”

Non-professionals made the situation more dangerous. As Steve crept down to the first floor and spotted the robbers himself, he understood what Bucky meant. Three of the men were piling their loot in the middle of the lobby, calling for the other two Steve couldn’t see to hurry up. It was clear their plan was to bust in, set off an explosion, wave their guns around, then grab all the cash they could. He remembered the bartender’s words: it’s all a bit wild west. The robbers acted as if they had all the time in the world, and no one would stop them. And they were right—at least ten minutes had passed and Steve didn’t hear sirens.

He spotted a camera with a red dot blinking. “Heads up, there’s active cameras. Cover your face,” he said. “I’ve got eyes on the three in the lobby. Can you take the other two? Then get to the hostages.”

“Yes,” answered Bucky, and then he ended the call. 

Steve crept behind desks and chairs, coming around behind the first robber. The smoke made it difficult for the robbers to see, hiding Steve as he took the man in chokehold until he passed out, never making any sound. He grabbed the man’s mask and put it on. The other two men didn’t notice. Steve grabbed a heavy paperweight from a banker’s desk and threw it at the second man’s head. He grunted, then went down. The third man turned, realized Steve was a stranger, yelling as he raised his rifle to shoot. Steve ducked, gunfire whizzing past his head, tackling the third robber to the ground and tearing the rifle free, punching him unconscious. 

Not far away, he heard more grunts and yells, and then the sickening sound of bones breaking. Through the murky smoke, he saw two more bodies thrown against the wall, sliding to the floor. With the electric cords from the lamps, Steve quickly tied up the three men he’d taken down, then dragged the other two bodies to the center of the lobby, tying them up as well, before going to help Bucky free the hostages. 

The further back into the bank he went, the harder it was to breathe. The fire from the explosion was starting to die down, but it only created dangerous levels of smoke. It even made Steve cough, wheezing as he searched for Bucky, hearing a metal on metal sound. Through the haze, Steve realized Bucky was trying to get into the vault. The hostages yelled for help, and he could hear them coughing and gasping for breath. The camera in this part of the bank had been smashed, lying in pieces on the floor.

Bucky paused when he saw Steve, shaking his head. “Punching this isn’t going to get it open in time. They’re suffocating. We need tools.”

If Bucky couldn’t break it open with his vibranium arm, Steve had no hope he’d do better. He still couldn’t hear sirens. Breathing shallowly, he met Bucky’s eyes through the masks they were wearing, then raised his hand, holding it in mid air. In his head, he counted down, like the countdown on the quantum tunnel platform: five, four…three…two. One. 

Mjolnir crashed through brick and mortar, busting through concrete and creating a big hole in the wall as it snapped into his hand. “Stand back,” he said to Bucky, then yelled to the hostages. “Everyone, stand back!” 

He swung Mjolnir, hitting the vault door. The vibration reverberated all along his arm. He swung again and again, until he heard the lock mechanism break, and then he and Bucky were able to force the door open by brute strength. The hostages tumbled out, a few carried by those that were stronger. Steve took hold of an older woman, guiding her to the fresher air in the lobby. He spotted Bucky helping his waitress friend. 

Steve kicked the doors to the bank open. Finally, in the distance, he heard a siren approaching. The hostages poured out of the bank. “Help’s on the way,” he said, as he grabbed Bucky’s arm. 

Bucky hesitated but then nodded, and they both returned inside, and slipped into the veil of smoke. Mjolnir had created a convenient exit, having left a large hole they could climb through to a side street that had no one looking. Steve called the hammer to him, and punched through more of the brick, widening the gap as he and Bucky crawled through, removing the masks and tossing them back into the bank. Less than a minute later, they were around the block, and in front of Bailey’s taproom again. The bar was empty, with everyone outside helping the hostages. Steve left cash on the bar for his drink, and then they got in their Subaru and drove home. 

At first there was only silence between them, and then Bucky turned to him and asked, “Is something like this going to happen every time we leave the house?”

Steve laughed. “Probably.”

*

A year passed. Then, two years.

Steve drove by himself into Portland—Bucky declined when asked—and managed to go to Powell’s Books without running into trouble of any sort. No bank robbers, no cries for help, no sudden, unexplained explosions. He bought every book he could find on quantum mechanics and time travel. Then, he visited an open library and with the help of the librarian, found a couple more books, both out-of-print, and took all the books back to the house. 

At home, he spread the books out on the kitchen island. The kitchen was the only warm part of the house. In February, the days were wet and cold. Steve thought it might get cold enough to snow. He sat on one of the stools while soup bubbled and simmered on the stove behind him, staring at the pile of books and not knowing where to start. 

Bucky came in from the backyard with both Max and Pixie at his feet, their collars jingling as they shook out their coats, shutting the sliding doors behind him. Steve smiled at how red Bucky’s nose was. Bucky went over to the sink to wash his hands. “What’s all this for?” he asked, indicating the books, gesturing with his chin as he poured himself a cup of coffee, then moved to stand on the other side of the counter. 

“For Tomorrow,” said Steve. That was how they referred to their present. Tomorrow, with a capital T. Right now, they were still inside the countdown: five, four, three…two… But Tomorrow sped closer and closer.

He looked up from his undecipherable pile of books and almost laughed. The three of them—Pixie, Bucky, and Max—were on the other side of the island, staring at him with near-identical expressions, heads tilted at the same angle. Though Max was not a small dog, he had figured out how to climb onto the stool, and sat almost the same head height as Bucky. Pixie, knowing very well she wasn’t allowed, had leapt onto the island counter top. Steve couldn’t read what they were thinking.

“Just thought I should have a better understanding of how time travel works.”

“Short answer: it doesn’t,” said Bucky. “Could have mentioned you didn’t know what you were doing before we took this trip,” said Bucky, more curious than upset. 

“Well, I’d done it before,” said Steve, reasonably. “It’s not the how that I’m talking about. I more or less understand the principles behind the quantum tunnel and these things,” he gestured to his arm, where the device lay hidden. “It’s the… variables. The unseen probabilities. This won’t be like other missions. When we were getting the Tesseract, we failed the first time, and had to improvise. But I had Tony then. It’s just going to be me this time. I want to be prepared.” 

“You were doing that with Banner, before we left,” said Bucky. 

Steve shook his head. “That was going over logistics.”

More and more, as Tomorrow grew ever closer, he had become preoccupied with the mission: what it meant, what he could and could not do. If there was one truth he’d come to rely on it was that for every action he made, there was an opposite reaction. There were always consequences.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, and Steve felt his ears burn. They hadn’t much spoken about what came after he returned the Stones—they hadn’t spoken about Peggy. Or Natasha. Glancing through the jacket covers for the books, Steve realized Tony had been right the first time. Time travel shouldn’t be possible. 

Pixie had decided nothing of real interest was going on with the humans, and looked like she was preparing to leap across to the counter by the stove, but then Steve pointed his finger at her, and she leapt to the floor instead. 

“You’re really going to do this?” asked Bucky.

Steve could not deny it. Yes, he was.

Bucky swallowed his coffee, pursed his lips with his eyes unfocused, then frowned down at the books. He began flipping them over one by one so he could read the covers, stopping when he got to a thin volume, one of the out-of-print books from the library, and pushed it across the island, closer to Steve. “Start with this one,” he said. 

Steve’s jaw fell open, and he stared at Bucky before picking up the book, entitled _The Grandfather Paradox_ , written by Vasily Andreev.

“Then, when you’re done with that, tackle Everett and Deutsch, and this guy, Planck,” said Bucky, separating out three other books. “You can read the others, but, they won’t help as much.”

“What?” Steve asked, astonished. Then, a thought struck him, and he stared at Bucky in dismay. He knew what this meant: Hydra had pursued time travel as well. 

Bucky looked at him in the same opaque way as before, but he nodded when he saw Steve had figured it out. He looked at the book in Steve’s hand. “Vasily Andreev. He was Hydra. They did their own research into time travel. Starting in the…” he furrowed his brow, thinking. “Fifties, I think. But it took decades. And they kept me around as a testing subject for some of it. Finally shelved the project for good in the…nineties.”

Steve was stuck on the horror of Hydra with a time machine. “What happened?” 

Bucky shrugged. “Same thing that happened to you guys. Time travel doesn’t work the way they wanted it to. They couldn’t send me back in time to kill George Washington. Or back to kill Lincoln. Or, more likely, back in time to kill you,” he said, voice cracking. His hand shook as he set his mug down on the counter. “It wouldn’t change the present. So, what was the point? It didn’t serve their purpose. So they scrapped the program.”

That took several minutes to digest, and neither spoke as Pixie trotted from Bucky to Steve and then to her food bowl. Her jingling collar was the only noise in the house until it started raining, pattering on the roof and on the deck. Steve couldn’t look away from Bucky, remembering the dawning horror on Bucky’s face after their fight on the helicarrier. He saw a shadow of that same horror now. They would have sent Bucky back in time to kill him as a kid, or as a young adult. Like a plot out of a bad movie. 

Steve cleared his throat. “I’m glad that didn’t happen.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, very pale, hastily taking another sip of his coffee. 

Steve opened _The Grandfather Paradox_ , staring at the words but not seeing them. “I want to make sure I know what I can and can’t do,” said Steve. “And what the consequences might be.”

Even from across the island, he sensed Bucky’s tension. It flowed from him like radio waves, almost like a physical hand that slapped Steve square on the forehead. “You want to go back in time and change what happened,” said Bucky, his voice tight. It wasn’t a question. “Change what happened to me. And to you.”

Steve shook his head. “No. I know that can’t be done. I don’t want to change anything for us. I want to change things for _them_.”

He didn’t have to explain to Bucky which “them” he meant. Sensing the energy shift in the room, Max whined. It brought Bucky out of his thoughts, and he stepped closer, letting the dog lick his face and neck. 

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” Bucky said to Steve, but he was shaking his head in resignation.

“So you’ve told me before,” said Steve, relieved that Bucky understood, forcing his throat to work. 

The house came with a fireplace, but they didn’t want the smoke to give away their location. Too cold and wet for the deck, they brought their bowls of soup and chunks of home made bread with them and sat in the living room, cozy under blankets with a propane heater gently warming the room, and began discussing what Bucky knew about time travel. 

It turned out Bucky knew almost as much about time travel as Bruce did, even lacking the science background.

“So, let me get this straight,” said Steve. “They kept you out of cryo during all this? Just you and a bunch of Hydra physicists in a room, figuring out time travel. Were you there, but in the background?”

“Hm, I think the higher ups wanted me there as motivation. They assumed I wouldn’t understand any of it. Or, they only needed me to understand my part. Which would have been to assassinate the target.” Bucky adjusted his position on the couch, with Max a familiar large lump under the blankets. 

Steve continued to stare at him, the terrifying thought of Hydra with the means of effective time travel coming back to him full force. Pixie tapped his hand, reminding him that his soup was getting cold. “You know, you could have said something earlier,” said Steve. 

“You looked like you knew what you were doing! Should have realized that was all an act, of course,” said Bucky.

Steve offered Pixie a small piece of bread. She sniffed at it, then ate it with her delicate tongue, ears twitching. 

“When you go back,” said Bucky, frowning at Steve in that way he did when he wanted to scold him for something, “You better not be a bum. Don’t embarrass me.”

“What?” asked Steve, trying to hide his smile. “Why would you say that?”

“Because. What are you going to have with you when you go back to her? Nothing. You’re not going to have a job. Or a place to live. Peggy’s a classy lady. She deserves better than a bum with no job and no money landing on her doorstep out of the blue.”

Steve laughed. “You’re absolutely right. What job should I get?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but they continued talking late into the night. They discussed their own history, going over dates and times. Steve took out his notebook, jotting down notes.

“It’s not known, exactly, what happens. There are different theories,” said Bucky, when they returned to the topic of time travel. “Have we created a new timeline here? A new alternate time from our own because we stopped a bank robbery once? Probably. This isn’t our timeline anymore.” He shrugged. “Does every decision we make create a new timeline? Some of these quantum theorists would say yes. You can get lost in the theory. And get paralyzed because of it. We made our decision in Portland that day. We saved those people. That was real. We made a decision when we jumped back five years. To stay in this house, to save Max and Pixie. You can’t rest on theory. You just gotta do it or not do it. The universe is smarter than we are. It already knows the answers.”

Steve stared at him, amazed at every word he spoke. Then he looked down at his notebook, turned pages until he got to the picture of Sam and Natasha, until he saw Natasha’s final note to him. He looked at the photo of Sam and Natasha for a long time, his eyes lingering over Natasha’s quirky smile, her eyes. “Can we travel from alternate reality to alternate reality?” asked Steve.

It was Bucky’s turn to stare. “Oh, man,” he said, shaking his head. Max’s nose popped out of the blankets, like he was sniffing the air. “My best friend’s a dumb ass,” said Bucky to the dog. 

Max barked in agreement. Steve grinned, picking up _The Grandfather Paradox_ and began reading. 

They fell asleep like that, with Bucky and Max on the couch, wrapped up like a burrito in a fluffy blanket, and Steve slumped in the armchair with Pixie curled up on his lap. When he woke again, it was light outside and Pixie was batting at his face with increasing urgency. 

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled, stretching. Bucky and Max were still asleep, a giant headless lump on the couch. Pixie leapt nimbly to the floor as he rose from the chair, trotting into the kitchen and headed straight to her food bowl, meowing because he first turned on the coffee machine before he scooped out some food for her. He gave her a good scratch as she hunkered down, eating like she was attacking a live animal. 

The glare coming in through the glass doors caught his attention, making him squint. White, pristine snow covered the entire backyard. Several inches had fallen during the night. He didn’t know why it moved him to see it, why it gave him hope. It’s not like he had never seen snow before. He was from New York; he’d seen too much of it. 

But there was something magical, waking up to a winter wonderland. Besides a flurry or two, it hadn’t snowed like this yet during their time in Oregon. He knew it wasn’t that unusual for it to snow in the Pacific Northwest, but all across the globe, weather patterns had changed, a side effect of losing half of the world’s population. 

Bucky didn’t make a noise when he woke. He never did. Steve thought it must be a left over habit from the Winter Soldier. But Steve knew when he woke anyway—there was a change in the silence, following by Max’s noisy panting, his paws on the hardwood floor. Steve turned and found Bucky standing beside him, staring at the snow-covered garden. 

“Would you look at that,” said Bucky, a slow smile spreading across his face. 

They bolted for the closet at the same time, tripping over each other in their rush to put on boots and grab their jackets. Bucky tugged a knit hat over Steve’s head and threw gloves at his face. Max barked and leapt with excitement while Pixie ran away from the sudden activity and noise to hide in Steve’s bedroom. 

Still in their sweats, winter coats on over their T-shirts, they ran outside, sliding on the icy deck before they leapt into the snow. Max continued to bark loudly, stopping at the edge of the deck. 

“Come here, Max,” called Bucky. “It’s okay.”

Screwing up his courage, the dog leapt, and promptly half his body disappeared into the snow bank.

They played for hours, throwing snowballs at each other, building snowmen, until they were chilled to the bone, soaking wet, and faint with hunger.

*

They had one year left when Steve asked Bucky, “What’s the one thing you’ve always wanted to do?”

It had to be something reasonable. It couldn’t be, “I want to go to the moon,” or, “I’d like to climb Mount Everest.” Both of those things were technically possible, but rather outside of Steve’s means at the moment. Well, Everest wasn’t, he reasoned silently to himself. Steve started trying to figure out how they could manage it, in case that was Bucky’s answer.

Bucky did his usual frown, shaking his head and shrugging. It was late July, and they were in the garden, building a trellis. “Hand me the measuring tape,” said Bucky. 

Steve handed him the measuring tape. “I’m serious,” he said, trying again. “There has to be something you’ve wanted to do and haven’t had the chance.” The faint bit of color beneath Bucky’s scruff told Steve there was something, and Bucky was embarrassed to admit it. “Come on, tell me.”

Bucky avoided answering, but Steve didn’t stop pestering him for the rest of the day. They’d made a recent trip into Portland, so for dinner they were able to have salad and fancy wine and even some store-bought dessert. 

It was a warm, buggy night, so they ate on the deck. Bucky put on one of Tamara’s and Laurie’s music CDs—their collection was an eclectic mix of country music and alternative rock with the odd hip hop album thrown in. Bucky thought Tamara was the country music fan, based on one picture of her in a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. This night, he chose a twangy young female artist, singing about heartbreak and lost chances. 

“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to start listing things. Whittle them down by process of elimination,” said Steve. Their smart phones had data again, and the Internet worked most days. He searched for, “thrilling things to do,” but soon realized that between the two of them they had done almost all of these things already. Skydiving seemed to top every list. “We could go to Las Vegas?” offered Steve.

Bucky looked horrified.

“Okay, no. Not your speed. Sing karaoke?” That one got him a death-ray, narrow-eyed, laser-beam look. “Nope. Visit New Orleans?” Nothing. Bucky had a completely neutral expression, giving Max all of his attention as he fed the dog a bit of steak. “I guess not. Oh, here’s one. We could eat deadly fugu. It’s a delicacy, apparently.” 

Bucky frowned, not understanding. 

“Sushi made from puffer fish. If not handled correctly, I guess it can poison you, and kill you.” He continued reading. “Oh. The poison is tretrodotoxin. I think I’m going to pass on that one.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “Could we,” he started, speaking for the first time in hours. He wasn’t looking at Steve, and that color to his cheeks returned, faintly pink under his beard. “Could we go to Disneyland?”

Steve stared at him, completely surprised. But of course Bucky would want to go to an amusement park. Steve should have known. Bucky was so different from the kid Steve had grown up with, it was easy to forget what he had been like. It had been Bucky who dragged Steve to Coney Island at least once a year.

Bucky frowned even more, shaking his head. “No. Sorry, forget I said that. Steve, just leave it. We’re good here, aren’t we? What else do I need?” 

“You want to go to Disneyland? Is it even open?” 

“It is. I read it in the newspaper. But it’s a dumb idea. We can’t leave Max and Pixie that long.”

“We can if we go and come back in one day,” said Steve. 

“How could we do that?”

Steve didn’t answer, but held out his hand. A moment later Mjolnir flew across the dark garden from where he’d left it earlier by the half finished trellis. Bucky’s eyes widened. 

But there were other considerations. An amusement park like Disneyland had cameras everywhere. If they got recognized, if word got back to Natasha in New York—Steve felt a roiling mixture of hope and dread—it would seriously complicate matters for them. Of course, they could always just return to their present earlier than planned, if that were the case. Worth it, he thought. 

“If we do this, you should probably take your arm off,” said Steve. Bucky occasionally removed the metal arm, when he wanted a break from it. There would be metal detectors, along with all those cameras, unless they bypassed the entrance all together, but Steve didn’t feel comfortable doing that. For their occasional trips into Portland, or to Seattle when Steve visited Tamara’s mother, it was easy to disguise the arm, but this would be a different level of security. 

Bucky shrugged. “Okay. It’ll keep attention off our faces anyway.” 

Officially, James Buchanan Barnes had been declared dead, so there were no active warrants or all points bulletins out on him anymore, and Steve Rogers was known to be in New York. Yet, it never failed to be cautious. 

“Are we really doing this?” asked Bucky, and Steve saw the glimmer of muted excitement in him.

“Hell, yes, we’re doing it.”

They went on a Wednesday, leaving after Bucky gave Max a good long walk and Steve spent several minutes giving Pixie belly rubs. 

“Get in here,” said Steve, standing in the garden a half hour before the park was supposed to open, holding out his arms for Bucky to step into his embrace. They’d stuffed baseball caps and sunglasses into their pockets.

Bucky grinned, laughing as he wrapped his right arm Steve’s waist. Steve gripped him tight with his left, Mjolnir held in his other hand.

“Wait,” said Bucky. “Have you ever flown with that thing before?” Steve shook his head no. Bucky’s eye went comically wide. “No, Steve, wait—”

Steve didn’t wait, but began spinning Mjolnir fast, as he’d seen Thor do countless times. “Hang on,” he said, over Bucky’s cries of alarm and protest, and they shot straight up into the sky with Bucky yelling.

He directed the hammer south, and they flew at a ridiculous speed. Steve wasn’t certain how long it would take, but only a few seconds passed and they were already several miles away from their home. Bucky didn’t stop yelling, but his cries changed into a whoop of delight once it became apparent they really were flying. 

“Steve!” he yelled over the noise of the wind. “We’re flying!”

To make it more interesting, Steve flew them over the ocean, dipping low to skim the water, and then back over the mountains and the redwood forests again. He found he could control their speed, urging Mjolnir to slow down or speed up. He took them higher, until clouds surrounded them on all sides. 

About twenty minutes later, they landed on the roof of a hotel near the park. Steve suspected they could have made it in less than half that time, if they hadn’t cared about breathing or wanting to make sure he didn’t lose Bucky mid-flight. Bucky looked dizzy as they regained their balance, but he was grinning broadly. 

“That was wild,” said Bucky, his cheeks apple-red. “Not sure any of the rides can live up to that. Why didn’t we do that before?”

“We can head back, if you want,” offered Steve. 

“No, no. Let’s go, let’s go,” said Bucky, pushing Steve toward the staircase access. They made their way to the lobby of the hotel, then availed themselves of the shuttle service to the park. A few minutes later, Bucky had bought their tickets and they were walking through the turnstile only fifteen minutes after the park opened, Steve using all the tricks Natasha had taught him to hide his face from cameras. 

They followed the flow. Bucky was all eyes as he tried to look everywhere at once. He seemed as fascinated by the simple things, like the flowerbeds and the façade of buildings and the horse drawn carriages, as he was by the larger attractions. Steve let Bucky make all the decisions. They wandered clockwise through the lands. 

Steve worried being around so many people would become difficult for Bucky, who was coming from two years of peaceful Wakanda before spending the last four years in near isolation in Oregon. Even now, the park was crowded. But Bucky seemed too distracted by the sights to care. 

“There’s a pirate ride, Steve,” he said, eagerly. “I want to go on that one.”

“Okay,” answered Steve, perfectly amenable. 

“You like pirates,” said Bucky. 

“If you say so.”

Bucky liked all the adventure rides—the rides that had stories, the roller coasters and other immersive experiences. Steve liked the animatronics. He liked the older rides, those that were based on the animation films he remembered, or stories that he’d grown up with. His mother used to read _The Wind in the Willows_ and the _Peter Pan_ books to him. He remembered seeing _Snow White_ in the theaters, and being wildly jealous of the animators. He liked the artistry of each ride, the dedication to detail and the engineering that went into them.

They ate terrible food. Bucky had at least four churros, possibly more when Steve wasn’t looking. The employees and guests alike tried to politely avoid looking at Bucky’s missing arm, their eyes sliding over the space in a kind of unfixed way. It irritated Steve, and he rashly stepped in front to draw their attention away from Bucky. Bucky only rolled his eyes at him, but he seemed more than happy to let Steve be his shield.

After lunch, Steve left Bucky to entertain himself people watching near the princess castle while he took the shuttle back to the hotel, then flew Mjolnir all the way home again to let Max out. He was back at the park an hour and a half later, but couldn’t find Bucky where he’d left him. 

He texted: _Where are you?_

Bucky answered: _Someplace with a lot of singing bears?_

It took Steve a moment to figure out where that was, asking one of the park employees where the singing bears could be found. He followed the employee’s directions, and waited on a bench for Bucky. When Steve spotted Bucky at the exit, he bought two ice creams from a nearby vendor and handed one to Bucky. 

“How was it?” asked Steve. 

“Musical,” answered Bucky. “It had a lady bear in a tutu.”

Steve laughed, ice cream dripping down his chin. 

When they reached Tomorrowland, Steve stopped. Bucky looked from him to the sign over the entrance and back to Steve again. “We can skip this part, if you want,” he offered. 

Steve frowned and shook his head. “No way.”

Bucky made Steve ride Space Mountain three times in a row. Though only a shadow of the real thing, the ride reminded Steve of the _Benatar_ , and of going through the jump point, traveling faster than the speed of light. 

They ended up staying for the fireworks, not leaving until the park was about to close, and on the way out Bucky had to go through each store again. He bought a set of Disney chew toys for Max, and a Mickey Mouse cat toy for Pixie. 

“Was it everything you hoped?” asked Steve on the shuttle back to the hotel. It was easiest to leave from the rooftop again, where no one could accidently see them under the cover of night. Steve was more than ready to return home, wondering what trouble Pixie had gotten into. 

Bucky remained silent long enough that Steve got worried. Maybe he hadn’t enjoyed it. Or it had been disappointing. But a slow smile spread across Bucky’s face. “It was great,” he said, simply. “Thanks.”

Steve’s throat caught, and he felt a flush of relief. “Good. I’m glad,” he managed. 

Bucky was watching him knowingly, softly. “And what about you?”

“I had a great time.”

“No,” Bucky shook his head. “I mean. What’s your answer? The one thing you want to do and haven’t had the chance?”

Steve shook his head. “These five years with you are exactly what I wanted to do and hadn’t gotten the chance.”

His answer made Bucky’s mouth fall open. With his eyes shining, Bucky faced forward, as if it were too much to look at Steve right then. But he slumped closer, knocking his shoulder against Steve’s as the shuttle turned into the hotel driveway. They made their way to the rooftop. Mjolnir waited for them, out of sight, tucked into a corner. 

Steve opened his arms again, but Bucky shook his head. If he’d had both his arms, Steve knew he would have folded them across his chest in defiance. “I’m serious,” said Bucky. “There has to be something you want to do.”

“No, honest. I’m good, I swear.”

“Bullshit,” said Bucky. “Look, you didn’t let up on me for an entire day. I’m prepared to sit myself down on this roof until you tell me.”

Steve couldn’t help it; he grinned. “Okay, okay,” he said, opening his arms again. “Get in here already.”

With a frustrated snort, Bucky went to him, and they hugged tight. “So?”

“Well,” said Steve, waggling his head. “There might be one thing.”

Buck looked at him expectantly, but Steve merely gave him a sly smile, spinning Mjolnir fast before they shot straight up into the sky. 

A week later they stood on a platform, high up on a peak with a stunning view of the Grand Canyon, strapped into zip line harnesses. 

“I can’t believe this is what you want to do,” said Bucky, shaking his head. 

Steve put on his helmet. “Who doesn’t want to do this?”

“Sane people,” answered Bucky, bouncing on his feet, gripping the handlebar tightly. The technician came over to double check their harnesses and the rigging, and make sure their helmets were on securely “You didn’t get enough of zip lines in the war?”

“None of those were over the Grand Canyon,” Steve reasoned, grinning. 

“I promise I won’t make you go on any more roller coasters.”

Steve laughed. “After flying around with Mjolnir, this is going to be a breeze.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” said Bucky, glancing at the zip line wire nervously. “But I think I trust that hammer more.”

There was a count of three, and then, no going back. They went over the edge. Bucky yelled, “Oh, God…” as they picked up speed. Steve’s stomach rose into his throat, his feet dangling, the wind rushing all around. They sailed side-by-side across the canyon.

*

A year left. Every day started and ended. Steve realized that time would be a fickle partner, and if he didn’t learn to make his peace with it, it would drive him insane.

Steve took several trips into Seattle to visit Tamara’s mother, lying to the nurses that he knew Tamara from work, and had known her mother was alone. Tamara’s mother was starting to fade, always worried about her daughter, confused by the nice young man who kept visiting her. Steve worried about her, telling her to hold on. Hold on for Tamara.

They did repairs to the house where needed. Steve put a fresh coat of paint on the outside, and Bucky fixed the leaky faucet in the master bathroom.

Six months left. Steve refinished the hardwood floors in the living room, and then did the same to the deck.

Three months. Bucky spent a lot of time in the garden, indecisive as he moved benches around to different locations, trying to pick the right spot. 

And then just a few weeks. They cleaned the house, top to bottom. 

Steve marked the time—right now, Scott Lang was driving across country in an ugly brown van. Right now, the other Steve was heading upstate, and would see Natasha at the compound. She would offer him half a peanut butter sandwich. Right now, Scott and Natasha and the other Steve were driving to see Tony. 

When they had only a couple of days left, Steve and Bucky huddled together in the master bathroom, propping up the pictures of themselves they’d taken five years ago in the safe house in Albany, attempting to make themselves look more or less how they looked back then. Steve shaved his beard, and with Bucky’s help, cut his hair. Bucky looked almost exactly the same—but he trimmed his hair, and shaved off some of the scruff.

“How do I look?” asked Bucky. 

“The same,” said Steve with a smile as Bucky flashed him an annoyed look. They fell silent, and Steve became too aware of the drag of his breath, counting out seconds. Staring at each other with so much unsaid between them filling up the space in the bathroom, they had never much needed to put into words what they felt, but he tried. “Bucky. Tomorrow, when I go. I meant what I said. I’ll come back.”

Bucky’s smile was slow and sad, but also genuine. “I know.”

Steve realized he didn’t need to say he would come back straight after returning the Stones if Bucky asked him to, knowing Bucky wouldn’t ask, and Bucky realized he could ask Steve to come back after returning the Stones if he wanted to, knowing he wouldn’t ask. 

They looked at each other’s reflection in the mirror. “Just a couple of kids from Brooklyn,” said Steve. 

“And look where that got us,” added Bucky, with a crooked grin.

At four a.m. the morning of, they packed the Tahoe with everything they did not want to leave behind, and then Steve miniaturized the SUV again, returning it to his pocket to take with him. Bucky wiped down every surface. They unsealed the clothing they’d religiously kept safe.

He kept an eye on the time: right now, in New York, the Avengers were walking together toward the platform, ready to leave for the Time Heist. Right now, Natasha Romanoff still existed in this timeline. 

_See you in a minute._

With a shaking hand, Steve wrote a note for Tamara and Laurie. 

_You don’t know us, but we thank you anyway. The deed to the house is in this envelope. We transferred it back into your names. All you have to do is sign it, and have it filed. The mortgage is paid off. We tried to keep it safe for you. Max and Pixie missed you very much._

He signed it SR. With the deed to the house, he left the rest of their cash and the drawings he did of the house and the garden and the ocean and beach, the few drawings he did of Tamara’s mother, each with the same signature. 

Bucky wrote his own, much longer, note, that he didn’t let Steve read. Steve suspected it was full of commentary on the garden, and stories about Max. With his note, Bucky left the one picture they’d taken of the two of them and Max and Pixie after they’d finished building the trellis. Both he and Bucky were looking down, so their faces couldn’t be seen, but it wouldn’t matter as much after they left, to keep their identities hidden. 

“It’s time,” said Steve, double-checking the time travel device, placed back around his palm again, ready to be activated and set to return them to the pre-programmed timestamp. Then, he looked at the clock mounted on the wall. Right now, in New York, Tony was finishing the iron gauntlet. They had begun to set each Stone. 

Max sat on his haunches, following Bucky with his eyes. Pixie was once again on the kitchen island, where she wasn’t supposed to be. They both watched Steve and Bucky, as if they knew what was about to happen.

Bucky nodded, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he knelt in front of Max, but his control slipped as soon as he took the dog’s head between his hands, tears spilling from his eyes. He struggled to speak. Max tilted his head, eager to lick at Bucky’s face. The tears didn’t stop and Bucky pressed his face into Max’s fur.

Damn, thought Steve. This was an unforeseen consequence he hadn’t anticipated. He looked at Pixie for help, but was immediately reminded how she woke him up that morning in her usual way, tapping gently on his face—tap tap, tap tap. How she had let him cuddle her, asking for belly rubs. 

He took a deep breath, and tried to think of options. Something that didn’t mean kidnapping Max and Pixie. But he couldn’t. 

“Bucky,” he said, kneeling beside him and Max. “Why don’t we take them, and leave in the Tahoe. We can return to the present later.”

Bucky rubbed at his eyes, but shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to Tamara and Laurie,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” He rubbed at Max’s face, the tears leaking from his eyes. “Your moms will be back in a few minutes,” he said to the dog. “You’ll be happy to see them. And you won’t miss me that much. Good dog. You stay. Stay.”

He stood and went to the sliding doors, then out to the garden without pausing or looking back, leaving Steve alone in the kitchen. 

“Thank you,” he said to Max, hugging the dog, then hugging him again. Max had been an unseen blessing, and he could never thank him enough. “Good dog,” he said, wiping his own tears. Then he stood up and faced Pixie. She meowed, and he scratched her face and chin. She placed her paw on his hand, like she was giving him a handshake. He smiled though his heart ached, and he bent to touch his face with hers briefly. “You be a good girl, okay?” 

He picked up Mjolnir and followed Bucky through the sliding door, closing it behind him. 

Bucky’s eyes were red but he’d stopped crying, and they went to stand on the other side of the greenhouse, hidden from view of the sliding doors. They would wait, to make sure Tamara and Laurie really did come back, before they left. 

Would he sense it? Would they be able to feel it when it happened? The first time, he had been too preoccupied with taking care of Bruce, and then seconds later the compound had been destroyed. 

There was a whoosh of wind, and then he heard birdsong. Max started barking. Beside him, Bucky sighed, and through the glass doors, Steve saw Laurie coming around the kitchen island. Then he saw Tamara. They hugged each other, perhaps a little confused at what just happened, while Max tried to jump on top of them. 

“Steve,” said Bucky, turning away from the happy family reunion. He seemed at peace, though sad. “Let’s go.”

Steve gave the Taylor-Guzmans one last look. Max was barking at the glass, then turning back to Laurie and Tamara, then back to searching for Bucky. Steve closed his eyes. “All right.”

They raised their wrists, tapping on the device. The time suits closed over them, and they shrunk down, down, and away. 

**The Present, five seconds later**

The platform became solid beneath his feet. Beside him, Bucky swayed, but he kept his balance better than the last time they’d made the quantum trip. The suits retracted into their devices. It was dark, though the sounds of the forest were all around them, and the trees swayed above their heads. He smelled night flowers and wet earth mixed with the burnt ozone coming from the equipment and the platform, and he heard the far off hoot of an owl. The pit that used to be the Avengers compound was a dark shadow in the distance. 

“We made it back,” said Bucky, like he hadn’t believed it would happen. 

Steve had never doubted it. He knew the suits would work, and the platform would bring them back safe, as it had once before. These things were built and created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. That meant, to Steve’s thinking, they were practically infallible.

He stepped down from the platform with Bucky, and picked up the wristwatch he had left on the console. The second hand was just crossing the number twelve. It was 12:16. He met Bucky’s eyes, and they shared a look. 

“Yes we did,” said Steve, putting his watch back on. “How does it feel to be back?”

“Weird,” said Bucky. His face and eyes still bore signs of recent crying, but he let out a gust of breath, then gave Steve a hesitant smile. “Not quite as weird as coming back from non-existence though.”

Steve powered down the platform and the console, turning off the generator before returning his and Bucky’s time travel devices to the secured container in the tent. Through the trees, he saw a figure moving toward them. 

“The guard’s almost here,” he said to Bucky, and Bucky melted into the shadows. 

The guard—his name was Colby, Steve remembered—was carefully carrying two cups of coffee. “Here you go, sir,” said Colby. 

“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup of coffee he did not want. “And call me Steve.” He choked a little on the hot liquid, and sensed Bucky rolling his eyes from his hiding spot in the woods. “This is perfect.” Long awkward pause. “Has it been a quiet night?”

“Yes, sir. I mean… Steve. Well, there’s a lot more animals about. I’ve seen a couple deer. And heard splashing in the water. I think it’s otters.” Colby looked out to the distance, gazing at the dark river. Steve was reminded that other people had their own lives and stories, their own traumas. Steve could tell, without asking, that Colby had been one of the survivors, who had lived through the past five years. “You know, half the animals came back, too.”

“Yeah,” said Steve softly. “Listen, thank you for the coffee, and the conversation.” Colby straightened, recognizing the change in tone. “I guess I needed to come out here and look at everything. Chalk it up to pre-mission jitters, but I can see everything is in good hands. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added, knowing it was unlikely. 

He picked up Mjolnir from where he’d set it down on one of the many cases around the console. Colby gave a start when he saw it, since Mjolnir definitely hadn’t been there when he left to get coffee. 

Steve shrugged. “Keep forgetting this thing everywhere,” he said, then made a hasty retreat. When he was far enough away from the platform site, Bucky stepped out of the shadows and joined him. They exchanged looks, then walked side-by-side to the temporary barracks. 

He expected Sam to be asleep already, but he was sitting up in bed, reading a tablet when they walked in. 

“Sam!” cried Bucky. Sam looked up as they entered the tent. “You’re…here.”

Sam frowned, and Steve had to suppress a laugh and a look of exasperation at Bucky. Subtle, he thought. 

“Where else would I be?” asked Sam.

“I don’t know,” said Bucky, struggling to cover his surprise. “Not here? It’s good to see you.”

This was very out of character for Bucky and caused Sam to give him a confused look. “It’s only been ten minutes, man.”

“Really?” said Bucky, heading for his bunk, next to Sam’s. “Seemed a lot longer.”

“Hi, Sam,” said Steve, soaking in the sight of him. Steve thought he sounded normal, but Sam was now giving him a worried look as well. 

“Why are you two acting so weird?” he asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

“Hey, I’m allowed,” said Steve. “I just got you back.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “All right. You get to play the, “I saw my friends get Snapped,” card a couple more times and then that’s it. You hear me? That’s going to get old real quick.”

Steve shook his head, though he smiled. “No promises.”

Sam snorted. To avoid Sam’s perceptive gaze, Steve headed for the bunk on Sam’s opposite side. He emptied his pockets and saw the Tahoe there in the palm of his hand, along with his keys, his compass, and his notebook. In his other pocket, he found one of Pixie’s toy mice. He wasn’t certain how it got in his pocket. But there it was. Somehow, he’d unconsciously picked it up. He set the felt mouse down next to the Tahoe, then rolled into bed. 

It was just the three of them in the tent. Fury had offered for Steve to have his own private temporary quarters, but he’d said no. He hadn’t wanted to be alone. There had been plenty of that in those five years. 

Bucky, on the other side of Sam, rolled flat onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The tent was filled with silence, until Sam spoke again. 

“You know,” said Sam, and Steve tensed because he recognized that tone of voice. It filled him with elation to hear it—something so familiar from his friend who he had never stopped missing—and also dread for whatever Sam was going to say next. “I’m not dumb. I know something’s up with the two of you. Steve,” he said, and Steve raised his head to look at him. “Is it about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow. Steve took in a slow steady breath. He could see Bucky over Sam’s shoulder. Having both his best friends’ attention on him like that was almost too much for him to bear. “Yes…and no,” he said. 

Sam’s penetrating gaze didn’t let him go. “You miss her, don’t you?” asked Sam, his voice cracking, pushing the emotion down.

Steve sighed. For him, the loss of Natasha, the ache of it, had settled into his bones. He carried it around with him along with her picture in his notebook, the same way he carried around his compass. The pain was five years old, but still fresh like it happened recently. Because it had, he reminded himself. Too recent. It happened that morning. It happened five years ago. It happened a week before. “Yes. I miss her.”

Sam’s eyes were wet, and he nodded. For Sam, the loss was even more recent and painful. He’d been brought back to existence only to learn that she was gone. Sam and Natasha had their own friendship—a deep one. 

Steve could try to sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. “Hey, Sam,” he asked, through a tight throat. “Tell me what you remember about Natasha?” 

“Oh,” said Sam, lying back. The three of them lay on their separate bunks, flat on their backs. “There’s so much to tell,” he said, and started talking. 

Sam talked about their time together, he and Natasha and Steve, always on the move. Bucky lay quiet and listened. When Sam finished, Steve talked about Natasha during the five years that followed. “She never gave up,” he said. “Not once.”

Somewhere around three in the morning, Steve heard Sam’s quiet snores, knowing he’d drifted off. Steve wondered if Bucky had fallen asleep too, but he was asleep himself before he could raise his head to check. 

He only slept for a couple of hours, waking before Sam and Bucky, dressing in his uniform. The uniform never failed to put into focus what he had to do, what he needed to do. It was mission time. 

He placed the Tahoe, the compass, the felt mouse, and the notebook into his various pockets. There was more he needed to pack: more disks to miniaturize and enlarge, the extra Pym particles, the miniaturized scepter, the Orb, the Tesseract cube, the device to hold the Aether—each preserved when they extracted the Stones. He had also asked T’Challa for a Wakandan stasis unit. These waited for him at the platform. 

With a cup of steaming coffee, he stood at the door to the barracks, admiring the sun rising over the Hudson. 

Bruce ambled over from his tent. Somehow, during those stolen five years, Steve had forgotten just how big and green Bruce was. But it was good to see him, and he smiled at his friend.

“Are you ready?” asked Bruce, glasses perched on his nose. It amused Steve to think that the Hulk, before Bruce had integrated the two personalities, had also needed glasses. 

“More or less,” answered Steve. He glanced behind him to where Sam and Bucky were only now stirring awake. “Just waiting on my two Prince Charmings. Join us for breakfast?”

Bruce had a polite, strained smile. It pained Steve to see it. He knew what was behind it—loss, heartache. With Thor leaving with the Guardians, and Barton going back to his family, of the four remaining original Avengers, it was just the two of them left. And Steve was about to leave. He’d come back, as he had promised Bucky, but it wouldn’t be the same. 

Here was another consequence, he thought. Another friendship he didn’t have enough time for. He knew Bruce tended to retreat into solitude when he was wounded, hurt, or afraid. 

“Please?” he asked, touching Bruce’s elbow that came to shoulder height. 

“Okay, Cap,” said Bruce. 

The four of them ate breakfast _al fresco_. Sam and Bucky, still not used to Bruce as he was now, watched with riveted fascination at how much food Bruce could consume. Before they finished, Bucky rose from his seat and began preparing a packed lunch, like he always did in Oregon on the days Steve would spend hours on the beach, or when he drove to Seattle or Portland. 

“What’s that?” asked Sam. 

“A lunch for Steve,” he said. “He’s like a cranky old lady if he doesn’t eat. You can shrink this and take it with you.”

Sam crowed and clapped his hands. “Finally,” he said. “Someone else who knows my pain.”

“This is blatant disrespect,” said Steve, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m never cranky.”

“It’s not a bad idea, though,” said Bruce. “Not like there are a lot of fast food options on Morag.”

They laughed a little, though the humor could only carry them so far. Bruce, saying he had some things he needed to check, made his excuses, planning to meet them at the quantum platform. 

Steve, Sam, and Bucky were left in silence except for the constant birdsong. The birds hadn’t stopped singing since the battle. Tomorrow had finally arrived, but he would enjoy these last minutes, sitting in the morning sun, with his friends on either side of him.

**Author's Note:**

> The Country Bear Jamboree is no longer an attraction at Disneyland, but it was always a favorite of mine, so I brought it back to life for this story. Consider it as further evidence of an Alternate Timeline.
> 
> This story was mistakenly tagged as Bucky/Sam. I meant that to be Bucky & Sam! (whoops, my bad).
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://hafital.tumblr.com/), where I mostly reblog things that make me laugh.
> 
> Please [reblog](https://hafital.tumblr.com/post/614298929464557568/the-second-five-years-hafital-marvel-cinematic) if you're so inclined. Thank you for reading!


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